Kingdom Come

Chapter 4

Simon watched Kerri disappear into the distance back towards their hometown, Pelma. Or rather, it was Kerri's hometown, and the town that Simon had adopted as his own. What had those people wanted? Why were they taking him back to Pelma? They hadn't looked like police, and though Simon supposed that anything was possible, he doubted that they would have done so much for a practically homeless man like Kerri. He wanted to yell some more, but his throat already hurt a lot and Kerri would be out of hearing distance by now, especially if he hadn't even heard Simon before.

            Simon allowed the doctors to check on him, and he watched Kerri's fangirl and her mother take their turns too. While he waited for the doctors to release them all, Simon found their packs. He tied the packs to Kerri's stick and pulled on the bundle to make sure it was comfortable. When they were released, many people asked about reimbursement for their tickets, and were redirected to the train station. Simon, however, saw a town in the distance, in the other direction, and went sprinting, looking for a horse or car, anything that would carry him quickly. A car would have been ideal, but Simon also knew that he'd never driven one before, and it would possibly be more trouble than it was worth trying. Besides, this was still Eklat, where a car was a rarity. When he first laid his eyes on a horse, he looked around for its owner, saw nobody, threw himself onto the horse, and spurred the horse onward towards Pelma.

            It had taken them hours on the train to get as far as they had. Simon gritted his teeth in frustration and the wind made his eyes water. Or at least, he would rather say it was the wind, especially since it also blew his hair out of his face. It was going to be a long trip, nearly a day. All progress would be lost, and then some. And since the train wouldn't be an option anymore, the trip to Jolier would take even longer than he had already predicted. Hopefully they could still make it to Jolier in time. Simon spurred the palomino to go faster.

            Hours later, Simon couldn't feel anything but sweat. Whether it was his or the horse's, he couldn't tell. He'd passed towns and fields and trees... all the things that he had watched on the train. He stopped and found a small pond, with a barn several yards away. This had to be someone's backyard, but he didn't really care at the moment. The horse began to drink thirstily, and Simon quickly began to scoop the water into his own mouth. He splashed some on his face, then took a moment to look around.

            There was a light breeze to stop the sweat, even if it was only for a moment. The pond he had stopped at was in the middle of the field, and the barn he'd seen earlier looked broken down. He made a mental note that, if it was safe to stop before reaching the border with Perivat, this might be a good place that he could bring Kerri to hide away.

            Kerri.

            Kerri, who had just fallen out of a moving train and been kidnapped.

             Simon shook his head and looked behind him. There was a hill, which he hadn't noticed a couple of minutes ago. Was he really so tired that he wasn't able to see the hills that were right in front of him? He took a quick jog up, then looked past the horse, now grazing, and the pond and the barn. There were several lights. Lights that were almost too familiar.

            Pelma.

            Simon felt relief at knowing that he was almost back to the place he thought of as his true home, then pain at knowing that he would be leaving it not once but twice in one day. But if they were close to Pelma, that meant that this was Ghost Barn. Simon didn't really believe in ghosts, but lots of people in the area did, and they said that all the tragic deaths involved with farming and war on this land made the house and its barn haunted. War, murder, tragedy... this barn seemed to hold stories of all of it, regardless of the existence of ghosts.

            "KERRI!" Simon shouted. The horse stared at him and then went back to its grazing. His voice echoed for a moment, breaking the night's silence, but he knew that it wouldn't even reach the town. He sighed and walked down toward the horse again, patting its rear as he walked behind it. "Do you think you'll be able to make it to the town tonight?"

            The horse stared at him. Simon sighed and sat. He figured that the least he could do was give the horse a few more moments. Even if the horse was up for running to Pelma, would it be able to run away too? And with an extra person on its back too? Simon hated how the odds seemed to be. For the first time all day, he let himself take in what had happened. He listed them off in his brain.

1.     He met Kerri at the train station.

2.     They went on a train and he realized he wouldn't be going to Eklat again.

3.     Kerri had braided a little girl's hair.

4.     The train's system was hacked, causing the train to stop.

5.     Kerri was thrown out of the train while saving the little girl.

6.     Simon had tried to get to Kerri, but the doctors stopped him.

7.     Kerri was taken by a group of three men and a woman.

8.     He had ridden all day back to the place he never thought he would go to again to try to find someone he would never see again after this journey and if he could get there in time, they would both be going back to Jolier and part ways and Simon would no longer be the free peasant boy he'd been for the last six years and Kerri would never be a part of his life and....

Simon forced himself to stop again. He picked up a stone from the ground beside him and threw it into the water. Standing up, Simon decided to walk to the barn. Surely it wasn't really haunted, but maybe it had something that he could use to save Kerri or use later in their trip now that their plans had been drastically changed. It took about five minutes to walk to the barn.

When Simon tried to slide the door open, it fell off its hinges and almost crushed him under its weight. He struggled to prop it up against the wall off to the side. Walking in, there were holes in practically every wall, the wind blowing in making howling noises. Was this why everyone said it was haunted? Because of the wind? Simon almost laughed; surely people couldn't be that gullible. Broken windows had dust collecting on them and their sills. Their broken shards were on the ground. The wooden walls also had graffiti everywhere. The ladder leading to the hayloft was rotting. It wasn't a big barn, but just big enough for three or four horses, and maybe some smaller animals too. Chickens? Goats or sheep? Simon didn't know.

There wasn't much in the barn other than rotting wood and some mice. Simon suspected that anything that had lived or been stored in there had been moved a long time ago. At least there weren't any skeletons lying around like everyone tried saying. It was those kinds of stories that kept people from going there in the first place. This led to construction workers refusing to come and tear down the barn. Even law enforcement wouldn't go to the barn. People liked to joke that they were scared. Kerri had always said that they had more important things to do than give in to peoples' ghost stories. This would be a convenient hiding spot if it was needed, especially while he was coming back with Kerri from Pelma... again.

Simon, deciding that there was nothing useful here, walked outside and climbed on top of the horse again. It snorted irritably at him but didn't buck to try to get him off. He didn't make the horse run again, but they left at a decent enough pace towards town. Who were the people who took Kerri? What did they want? Was Kerri even still alive? Why would they take a street boy from Eklat? Simon wanted to beg anyone who would listen to let Kerri be safe.