Date: Sat, 24 Feb 1996 13:32:47 -0500 Reply-To: LGreeneyes@AOL.COM Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Laura Schomberg Subject: First Time Out part 7 X-To: dok@falcon.cc.ukans.edu First Time Out Part 7 by Laura F. Schomberg The loft 3:45 pm Ellie stood staring out the window for a long time. Images from the last few days playing out in front of her eyes. She didn't feel ready to talk about Peru, not yet anyway. "Why didn't you take your weapons?" Duncan asked again. "Why didn't I take my weapons," Ellie repeated as she turned around to face the men in the room. "To answer that I have to take you back about 55 years. I never went anywhere without a weapon until I started helping the Jews in Poland during the war. On one occasion I was very nearly caught by German troops and Abram suggested that I leave my sword and knife with him whenever I went on a run. I thought it was a good idea. Can you believe that I only ran into one immortal during that time? And he was a friend. I didn't run into any when I was in Stutthof. Well, not counting Danka and Hamann." "What happened to Abram?" Joe interrupted. "We lost track of him when he was sent to a concentration camp." "I don't know. He arrived at Auschwitz with Danka and Janek. When the kids were sent to Stutthof Abram told them to look me up. That was the last I ever heard of him." Adam was the only one who noticed Ellie watching Richie while she discussed Abram. When he noticed Richie's barely imperceptible nod he felt his heart begin to ache. There was a time when he knew all Ellie's secrets or at least when he was the only person she confided in. Of course that was before his betrayal. "Anyway, I got my weapons back after the war and I never went without them until twenty years later. That's when I took Danka's head. I guess I sort of snapped then. I gave my weapons to Janek and told him to destroy them. Obviously he didn't." "Did you ever tell Janek about Danka?" Duncan asked. "No. I wanted to but Danka didn't want him to know. Maybe I should have. I guess it's all moot now." "Anyway, after I gave Janek my swords I came back to this country. That was two years before the 'Summer of Love'. I have to admit, I really got into that scene. Peace, drugs, and hippie sex. I couldn't care less about the fight to end the Vietnam War but the rest of it...." "What were you looking for?" Ellie turned to Duncan before answering. "That's easy. I was looking for death but I didn't have the guts to go out and ask someone to take my head. I couldn't begin to tell you how many times I od'd on one drug or another. In nearly 10 years I only ran into one other immortal. Adam. Remember Woodstock?" Adam nodded. "I also remember what we did to make money. Do you?" Ellie smiled, "The Great Anna. Mentalist Beyond Compare." "Mentalist?" "Yes, Richie. I can read minds. Well a little and for some reason only other immortals. And only when they are really thinking about it. That's why I kept calling you baby. To get you to think about your age. The only thing it is really any good for is determining who will become immortal." "What made you decide to come back into the game?" Duncan asked. "A dream. A really, really bad dream," she said as she turned back to the window. ***************************************************************** ************ Ellie looked around her. Suddenly she recognized where she was, the march! But where was everyone? Where was Danka? Ellie began to panic as she examined the bodies littering the ground. None of them were Danka. Ellie stiffened when she felt the presence of another immortal. She looked around her in panic realizing that her sword and knife was still under the floor of Abram's temple. Slowly she relaxed when she saw Danka moving toward her. Danka came up to Ellie and stood staring at her with fire in her eyes. Ellie became confused. She tried to take a step back only to find that her feet seemed to be bolted to the ground. "You said you'd kill him. You said you'd kill him and he's still alive! Alive!" "I'm sorry Danka," Ellie said trying to calm her. "I haven't found him. But I will. And then I'll kill him." "Lies! You haven't killed him. So I told him he could kill you." Ellie looked at her in confusion. She was beginning to ask her what she meant when she felt another immortal. She turned to see a man of medium height coming towards her. Ellie had never seen him before. He had dark brown hair and eyes and he had wrapped a scarf around his neck. "Because of you I'm dead!" he claimed. Ellie noticed that he had a South American accent. "Dead!" He shouted. Ellie watched in horror as he unwrapped the scarf around his neck. It had apparently been holding his head on to his neck. As it came away his head started to topple back. He used one hand to grab his hair and hold his head in place. "Because of you," he said over and over again. "You haven't killed him so I told him he could kill you," Danka's voice joined his. Ellie raised her hands to her ears as she tried to back away from the two dead immortals. She tripped over a body and fell to the ground. Ellie's terror grew as she saw the body turn under her legs. It's dead arms started to reach for Ellie's legs. Ellie screamed as she scrambled to her feet. She tried to run but found her path blocked by the two dead immortals. She turned away from them and started to run. She hadn't gotten far when she noticed the other bodies rising around her. "Because of you" "You haven't killed him so I told him he could kill you." Ellie looked frantically for a way to escape. There was none. The dead were coming at her from all sides. Ellie screamed as she felt cold hands start to grab her arms and legs. She started jerking frantically but she couldn't break free. Her head snapped up as she felt the presence of a third immortal. The immortal came slowly toward her swinging his sword in lazy circles. He was tall with blonde hair and gray eyes. Ellie recognized him immediately, Hamann. She renewed her efforts to escape without success as he laughed. "I get to kill you," he started to chant, adding his voice to the voices of the other immortals. Ellie felt a hand grab her hair and pull her head back, exposing her neck. She couldn't move as she heard Hamann's sword cut the through the air. She screamed one last time as she felt the blade slice into her neck. ***************************************************************** ************ "Damn." Richie said. "I don't want to ever have dreams like yours." Ellie didn't respond, she just continued to look out the window. "Did you ever find out if this unknown immortal actually existed." "Yes, Adam. I did. His name was Ricardo Matos." "Was?" "According to the records that Janek found, he disappeared in 1968 while he was in Peru." "So why didn't you take your sword to Peru?" Joe asked. "I believed that I wouldn't have any problems. For some reason I didn't make the connection to my dream. And we were taking in enough automatic weapons into the country illegally. I didn't want to have to worry about my 'manual' weapons." "What happened in Peru?" Duncan quietly asked. "I finally found Hamann." ***************************************************************** ************ A large villa about 10 miles from Yungay, Peru 3 days earlier Ellie turned to see Rebeka and Jacob come up from the fence. They planned to snatch a man formerly known as Captain Eric Hageman. He had given the order to kill all straggler during the enforced march from the camp at Stutthof. So far everything was going along as planned. So far they had managed to climb the fence and bring over all their weapons without alerting the villa's security. The three now spread out as they moved in toward the villa. Ellie felt the presence of another immortal as she saw a tall blonde guard come out onto the covered porch. She began to rise when she recognized him as the immortal who had killed her during the march. "Helen," Rebeka hissed. "Get down!" Ellie didn't respond, instead she stood, in full view of the villa, and stared at the man on the porch as she slowly raised her machine gun. He turned toward her with a look of confusion on his face before he raised his automatic weapon and opened fire on Ellie. Ellie's body jerked as it was hit by the rifle's bullets. Her finger spasmed on the trigger causing her gun to empty its clip in Hamann's direction before her body flew back to slam into a tree. She was dead before her body could slide to the ground. Ellie awoke to find herself in a muddy ditch. At first she couldn't remember what had happened. The memories flooded back as she looked around her. She was relieved to see that no one else was in the ditch. She stayed in the ditch for a few minutes trying to get her bearings. It was no use, she had no idea where she was or even if she was still in Peru. She started to climb out of the ditch until she heard the sound of a car approaching. Dropping back into the mud she waited for the car to go past paying close attention to the direction the car was going. When it was gone she climbed out of the ditch and headed in the same direction. She hoped that it would take her into a town. Any town. ***************************************************************** ************ "Where did you end up?" Richie asked. Ellie shrugged. "I never did figure that one out. Somewhere along the way I came upon a stream. I cleaned up as best as I could and kept walking. When I got to town I went into a bar and stole the coat I was wearing when I got here. I used the money in a wallet I found in the coat to buy a train ticket to the nearest community with an airport. When I got there I stole a small plane and flew it low through out the night. I abandoned it when it ran out of fuel in New Mexico and made my way here." No one spoke for a long time. In the silence Ellie moved away from the window and took a seat on the sofa next to Richie. He reached over and squeezed her right hand. She gave him a sad smile as she placed her left hand over his hand. Adam watched their exchange before pushing himself off the chair he was sitting in to move toward the window Ellie had just left. "What do we do now?" He asked. Ellie turned to him and said, "I told Janek a long time ago that if anyone came looking for me to tell them where to find me. Not to put up a fight. I'm sure he did just what I asked. The question is where did he say I could be found?" "I'd say he told him you could be found at Duncan's." "No, Joe. I don't think so. He didn't know where Duncan lived, unless you told him." Joe shook his head. "Joe. Where did Janek send Ellie's swords?" Duncan asked. "To my place." "Your bar?" "No. My home." "Well then," Ellie said, "Janek sent him there." End of part 7 =========================================================================