Al was rowing a boat to Poplar Island. He was thirteen, or about to become thirteen (his birthday was Halloween, so a couple more months to go,) but he was in his grown body, and he knew this because it had to be a dream, and dreams often had that uncanny quality where two contradictory facts could be true at the same time.
It was a rather large boat, because it had many occupants. Not only were Dad and Sam here, but Rachel, Lauren, Joe and Sunny, all thirteen and in their grown-up bodies as well. Danny Trybek was also there, but he was the only one who looked thirteen, probably because that was the last time Al saw him. Sparky, the dog Rachel fell in love with when the LSDC had the commission to make a younger child believe they'd found her dead dog, lay at her feet.
"This never happened," Al said to his father, who wasn't his father, and to Sam, who seemed content to let him row on his own.
Apparently, all of his friends were leaving him to do the rowing. All of them, except for Danny in his beige cable knit sweater and brown cords, were wearing what looked like the costumes they wore on the fateful Halloween of the year before, when Lauren threw Francis O'Rourke to the ground, except that these costumes were remarkably well done. Lauren's samurai armour looked like the genuine article, as if she had broken into a museum and stolen it. Joe looked both like himself and like the Lou Ferrigno Incredible Hulk, his green makeup professionally applied. Sunny's Luke Skywalker costume looked not store bought but taken directly from the Lucasfilm set, including his lightsaber. Rachel... Al forgot what Rachel was supposed to be that day, but she wore the gear Lauren usually wore when she was doing her martial arts exercises, but in her size, so it fit.
Oddly, Rachel was looking right at Sam, because she was directly across from him, and no spark of recognition lit in her eyes. Then again, if this really was Rachel at thirteen, then she wouldn't be introduced to Sam for thirty more years.
"You always wanted to be a pirate and row across the Fraser to Poplar Island from the Queensborough shore," Dad said.
Al looked at himself and discovered he wasn't wearing his Han Solo outfit, which he'd worn last Halloween, but the puffy shirt of a pirate. He didn't have a patch over his eye because he could see out of both but, feeling at his head, he could tell he was wearing a tricorn hat. "Did I tell you that? I don't remember telling you that."
"That's because this isn't really a flashback," Sam said. "Your father is just repeating what's already in your head."
"If that's true, then why did he tell me something completely new when he said he wasn't my father?"
"I can answer that one," Rachel said, to his surprise. "You probably already had that information in your subconscious. Sam told me the same thing when I first met him, that all the information he was giving me was just what was already in my head, since he was a figment of my imagination. He also told me I would cheat on you with Lauren two days after we first made love."
"I did," Sam confirmed.
Al blinked in surprise at the frankness of her statement, and also the implication that he must have known all along his father wasn't his father, but continued rowing. "That's a very profound thing to say, Rachel. Are you sure you're thirteen?"
"Of course I am. We're rowing to Poplar Island, aren't we?"
"Why am I the only one rowing?" Al asked, suddenly irritated.
"There's only one set of oars," Joe said quite reasonably.
"Well, why the hell don't you row?" Al demanded. "You're the Incredible Hulk, after all. You could probably row for days."
"Because you had sex with my wife," Joe said, also very matter-of-factly. Al noted that his friends were speaking with flat voices, as if they were not really his friends at all but CGI likenesses voiced by unenthusiastic actors.
"What about you, Sunny?" Al asked. "I'm starting to get tired, here."
"Sorry, buddy, I'm too busy being a City Councillor."
"Oh, did you win the election?" Al asked in surprise. "I must not have been around for that."
"Of course you weren't. You haven't been around for a lot since the accident. But don't worry, we all had fun without you."
"What was that about the accident?" Al asked, but before he could get an answer, the boat ground against the shore of Poplar Island. That was fast. He didn't need anyone to help him row after all.
"It's go time," Lauren said, leaping from the boat and drawing her grandfather's samurai sword. "Stay close to me. The treasure is guarded by hostiles. We'll need to coordinate our attack."
Sunny alighted beside her and his lightsaber burst into life, making that trademark swooshing, throbbing distortion noise. It looked deadly, and Al didn't want to get too close to it.
"What are we thinking?" Sunny asked. "Storm troopers or Tusken raiders?"
"Both, if I know Emperor Trybek." Lauren looked to Danny. "You better stay here in the boat with Al."
"Why should I stay in the boat?" Al asked. "We're the LSDC, aren't we? We fight together."
"You have no weapon," Joe said, stomping out of the boat. "I at least have superhuman strength. You did your part rowing us here, we'll take care of the rest."
Al felt inordinately angry at being dismissed, even if Joe was right. He didn't have a weapon. Didn't pirates at least have a flintlock or a cutlass? "Well, what about Rachel?" he asked. "She doesn't have a weapon."
"Oh, don't you know?" Rachel asked. "I was raised by wolves, so I can summon them to me. Come on, Sparky, let's get the pack together!"
She climbed out of the boat and Sparky followed, howling ominously. Al didn't remember Sparky as anything but a love sponge, docile and welcoming of belly rubs. This was a side of Sparky he never saw before, and he was reminded of...
Wait, was that Hunter and Duchess up ahead? "Hey, those are my dogs!" he shouted. "Are you summoning my dogs?!"
"They were never your dogs," Rachel said, rather cruelly. "They were your father's dogs. They just tolerated you because you were the family they were supposed to guard."
"But he's not my father!" Al protested. "I just learned that! So then they weren't his dogs!"
"Oh, grow up, Al," Dad said. "They respected the man, not the title. God, you were such a wimp, definitely Richard's boy. They were this close to eating you every minute of the day," he said, holding up his thumb and forefinger a centimetre apart.
"That's harsh," Al said. "Wait, Rachel! You're supposed to be scared of Hunter and Duchess! You always have been!"
"This isn't real!" Rachel called back as she walked toward the fray with her growing pack. "Here, I'm not scared of them!"
"I'm getting out," he said to Dad and Sam. "I can't miss the fun."
"Can I come with you?" Danny asked.
"Yeah, why not," Al said as he noticed, up ahead, figures moving in the trees, the enemy coming into formation. "I'm actually glad you're here, Danny. Did you get Rachel's message during the seance? We tried to contact you and let you know how sorry we were that we didn't do more to help you."
Danny shrugged. "What more could you have done? You were kids."
"Maybe if we were faster convincing Mrs. Anderson to foster you," Al said, watching his fierce friends approaching the enemy. The first thing to burst through the trees was a swarm of drones, and Sunny went after those, swinging that lightsaber like an experienced Jedi. With each swing of the weapon, a drone exploded and crashed to the ground.
"It's okay, man, don't beat yourself up about it," Danny said.
"Rachel and I fostered two kids of our own, and then we adopted them," Al said, still feeling the need to make amends.
Danny wasn't paying attention anymore. The battle had become more pitched. Francis O'Rourke and Paul Baxter lumbered their way toward the LSDC, followed by ten men wearing tusken raider faces instead of balaclavas and carrying baseball bats. This was starting to look bad.
Lauren fell on the two schoolyard bullies in an instant, her sword flashing lightning quick in a complicated, balletic series of movements she'd obviously practiced for years. Al recoiled when he saw heads flying and arms and legs severing. Jesus, he had no idea Lauren could do that.
The men with the bats were almost upon her, though, and he feared they might overtake her, but out of nowhere a pack of wolves descended on them, joined by Sparky, Hunter and Duchess, and the men quickly had their hands full keeping them at bay.
"Go, my pets!" Rachel shouted, cackling like a witch. "Get the fuckers who beat up Joe!"
Before they could celebrate that victory, a dark green Dodge Charger flew at them from around the shore, a ramming bar on its front. It looked curiously like the one that was chasing them, not too long ago, if he remembered correctly. The driver and passenger, wearing storm trooper helmets, leaned out their windows as if making sure they were still heading in the direction of the invading army.
Joe placed himself right in its path, and Al feared for his safety at first, but he should have known the Hulk had nothing to fear even from a speeding car. He smashed down with his fists, flattening the front of the car and stopping it in its tracks, making the two storm troopers fly out and crash to the ground. He then picked it up and threw it, and it sailed toward the treeline, from where emerged, with a snapping of trees like twigs, a giant of a man, who roared when the car struck him, but swatted it away without another thought.
"When did my dad get so big?" Danny asked.
"That's how big he seemed to us when we were thirteen," Rachel said. "It's all proportional."
"Jesus Christ!" Al shrieked. "Be careful, guys!"
Joe was already running toward his much larger opponent with no fear. Mr. Trybek, or Emperor Trybek as he was known here, swung his huge fist down upon him, but Joe caught it in both hands, and the two struggled in that position long enough for Sunny, who had by this time finished with the drones, to come up from underneath and slash at the giant's achilles tendon with his lightsaber. Emperor Trybek bellowed in pain and collapsed to one knee, whereby Joe gave him a massive flying uppercut to the chin, knocking him out.
"To the treasure!" Lauren bellowed, pointing her sword, dripping with blood, toward a giant X that had suddenly appeared further down the shore. She'd finished off the remaining bat-wielding men after the wolves had whittled them down, and she stood over a pile of body parts, looking beautiful and triumphant and terrifying. Al remembered that he was in love with her, but then he also remembered he was in love with his wife, Rachel; did the dream logic apply here as well? Could two seemingly contradictory statements both be true at the same time?
Sunny needed no further prompting. He dispatched the two storm troopers with his lightsaber and hurried in the direction of the treasure. Rachel beckoned to Al and Danny. "Come on! It's safe now! We won!"
Al looked at Dad and Sam, still in the boat. "Are you two coming?"
"You go ahead," Dad said. "We're perfectly happy observing."
"Besides," Sam said. "We know exactly what's in the treasure chest."
Unnerved, Al followed after the rest of them and watched as the dogs and the wolves dug at the X. Everyone in the LSDC stared avidly as the chest was revealed, and as Joe pulled it free from the damp earth, Al realized he'd seen this chest before. It was the steamer trunk Joe's family brought from Italy. It was also, he remembered, the trunk in which Charlie, Joe's brother Johnny's family's dog, was buried, and he braced himself to see the dog again, remembering Sam's pronouncement.
When Joe opened it, though, Al saw only emptiness inside.
Everyone groaned in disappointment. Al crept forward to see if it was really true, that all of their efforts, rowing here, the battle, had been for nothing.
It was true, the steamer trunk was empty. Except... wait. Now that he was directly overtop it, he saw that at the bottom of the trunk was not its wooden bottom, but a set of stairs that led down.
"Guys!" Al exclaimed in delight. "Look, a stairway to more adventure! We don't have to go home after all! Rachel, you can avoid your mom a little longer! Danny, we can hide from your dad until he gets arrested!"
He looked up and saw that his friends didn't share his excitement. They stood slumped, staring dumbly at him, as if they were robots whose batteries had drained.
"Guys?" he asked. "What's wrong?"
No response. Even the dogs and the wolves had lain down, done with their mission. They joined his friends in silent vigil.
He looked at the staircase and then back at them. "Don't you want to go in?" he asked.
Silence. He didn't like this change in them. He needed to get away. He climbed into the trunk and hurried down those stairs...
Darkness.
Then a crack of light, and that infernal beeping again. It hurt his eyes, and straining to keep it out made him tired, but he thought he should hold on, somehow, that holding on was important, that there was something in this light and this racket he had to sort out, that maybe the treasure he was looking for was here, somewhere.
Eventually it became too tiring, holding on, and it slipped through his hands, and the jolt of it made him fall backwards, and everything
Was
Darkness.
Thanks for reading this far! This was a fun chapter to write, as it was like a bonfire of all the plot elements of their past and present stories, in a wacky sequence that features in dreams, except that Al's not dreaming. If you liked what you read so far, hit "Vote" to send this title up the ranks. Leave a comment and let me know what you think!
To return to the present day, and Joanie's first meeting with the new transfer who might give Joe a run for his money, click on "Continue reading."