Date: Sun, 30 Apr 1995 04:47:05 -0400 Reply-To: Monique6ft@AOL.COM Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: "Monique T." Subject: Highleaper 2/2 (parts 3 & 4) Part 3 Al walked solemnly out of the chamber. He had just talked to Sam. To Al at least part of Sam was still alive. To the others who only knew of Sam through Al's reports Sam had just died. Al turned directly to Gushie "Do we have anything on this Ian McShane yet." Gushie stood over one of Ziggie's monitors. His hair seemed even messier than normal and his thick glasses were crooked. "I don't know," he said "something is really screwy here. "Look," Gushie said pointing to the screen "it just doesn't fit. Someone matching McShane's description and carrying his I.D. was found in a corn field out side of town, beheaded." Gushie looked up shaking his head. "McShane and his friend listed as a 'John Doe' originally died five days after the time Sam leaped in." "That's not possible." Al said "McShane was almost dead when Sam leaped in. Perhaps someone moved the body." Gushie paged through more of Ziggie's report "No, we've even accessed the coroner's report. It lists the wounds on the body, none of which match those of our friend's." Al stood back shaking his head and patting down his neon green sport coat looking for a cigar. "This just doesn't make sense, have we run a background check on McShane yet?" "Yea," Gushie managed to frown and grin at the same time. "The only record we have of Ian McShane before he bought that Trans-Am is his birth certificate," Gushie paused for proper dramatic effect "and his death certificate at the age of two days." Al threw up his hands,"and an alias to boot. How are we suppose to find out anything about this guy without any more to go on?" From their position Al and Gushie could see the body laying neatly in the waiting room. It was positioned comfortably on the couch with a sheet over it. Al thought he saw the sheet move. "Did you see that?" he asked Gushie. "See what?" "He moved." Al said nervously pointing his unlit cigar at the body of his friend. "Now, Sir, you know that's not possible." Gushie said trying to be soothing. Suddenly Sam sat up clutching his abdomen and trying to stifle a cry of pain. The blood stained sheet fell to the floor revealing the remains of the shredded and bloody jump suit Sam was still wearing. Al rushed to the aid of the man who appeared to be his best friend. With the approach of Al and the others their guest suddenly had a wild and terrified look in his eyes. He stood up holding onto the bunk for support. Doubled over clutching his stomach he was still able to look extremely menacing. Al stopped short, holding his arms out keeping everyone else away too. "Relax," he said "we won't hurt you." Sam backed away a step then doubled over a little more as another surge of pain ripped through his body. The wild look in his eyes continued to keep everyone at bay. "My name is Al." Al said soothingly "can you remember your's?" Sam suddenly forced himself straight and said proudly in a very thick Scottish brogue "I am Duncan Macleod of the Clan Macleod." He looked around the place then asked "What manner of magic brought me here?" "That's kind of hard to explain." Al said "But we're not here to harm you." Tina leaned over and whispered to Al "Look at his wounds, they're almost healed." Al continued to talk to Sam "Can you tell me the last thing you remember?" Duncan leaned back against the wall holding his hand to his head. He appeared to be having a blackout. He slowly slid down the wall till he was in a squatting position. He leaned forward head in hands resting his elbows on his knees. He started speaking again this time with just a hint of an accent "There was a fight." "Who was fighting?" Al asked. He had knelt down in front of their guest. "I was." "And who else?" "Lancelot." "Why?" "He had gone after my friend Richie. Lancelot has become a coward, looking for the easy heads." Duncan spoke as if he were in a dream. "So you fought him to protect your friend?" "I've lost too many friends lately." Suddenly Duncan's head cleared "Richie, were's Richie." "Richie is okay." Al said. Duncan looked around "Where am I?" he demanded "Who are you people?" "This is the waiting room." Al said simply. Knowing full well that most leapees forgot what happened here. One of the better side effects of the swiss cheese memory syndrome caused by the process. "What am I doing here, is this a hospital?" Duncan had stood up straight and proud. There was no obvious sign of the injuries of less than half an hour before. "No it's not a hospital." Al said "A lot has happened, perhaps you'd like to get cleaned up. It appears we both have a lot to talk about." As he talked Al motioned to the gore that Duncan was the center of. The black Trans-Am pulled up to an old warehouse in a dilapidated part of the city. Drawing close to a garage door, Richie pushed a button on the visor opening the door. He backed into the building all the way onto a freight elevator. Richie turned and looked at Sam. "Well?" "Well, what?" "When you drive you always make me close the elevator. I guess now its your turn." Sam was in no mood to argue anything. He sat for a second gathering his strength then got out of the car. Pulling the door shut he saw the out side door begin to close. Richie must have closed it from in the car. Sam got the door down then saw a switch marked simply 'UP' and 'DOWN'. It was already in the down position so he pulled it up hoping that this was the proper thing to do. The elevator shook slightly then started up. The room on the second floor was made into a large garage. An old black Thunderbird convertible sat near by. The car looked like it was recently parked. Other cars were pushed into corners, all covered with dirty, old tarps. From their shapes, they looked like they represented every decade of the automobile. There was the classic box of the twenties and thirties, the round fat fenders of the forties and the shoe boxes of the fifties and sixties. Richie pulled the Trans-Am into the center of the garage and parked it. He then grabbed a long cowboy duster style over coat and his sword with it's fancy gold hilt from the back seat. Sam decided he had better follow suit, so he retrieved the katana and his black trench coat. Sam followed Richie across the garage to the only obvious door. This must be the exit Sam thought, perhaps stairs down to the street. The door opened into a spacious loft apartment. Most of the room was filled with crates and boxes. At the far end was the living quarters. It was sparsely furnished with a couple of added rooms. The rooms looked like large wooden cubes set down in the middle of the warehouse. To one side of the living area was a well equipped work out area. This space included the standard mats, weight machines, punching bags and other things along those lines. There was also a large number of ancient weapons. Most notably swords. There were swords from cultures spanning the globe and history. Richie headed right to one of the bedrooms, taking off his shredded sweater as he went. "Mac," Richie said from his room. "Can I ask you a question?" "You can always ask." Sam responed as he carefully entered the other bed room. Richie entered the room and stood just inside the doorway. Sam found a clean and folded black t-shirt to replace the shredded one he was wearing. "Why don't we start looking for the others?" Richie asked. "Looking for whom?" Sam responed honestly. "You know what I mean, Mac." Richie said "You know what they say, the best defense is a good offense. Lance almost got both of us." "But he didn't get either of us." Sam interjected. "Yea but if it had been on our terms, it probably wouldn't have been so close." "I think you know how I feel about that." Sam guessed they had had this conversation before. "Listen, Mac" Richie pleaded "I know you don't beleive in being a hunter and all but I think we have to be more agressive." Richie paused a bit choosing his words. "You've seen that you can't avoid the game. We should at least do something more to protect our selves." "Such as?" Sam was totally confused what was this game the kid was suddenly talking about? "We could try to track the others. Find out whose close by. In other words, you know, be a little more agressive in our defense." "We'll talk about it in the morning." Sam said glancing at the red numbers of the room's alarm clock. "3:21am means it is time to sleep for most people." "You know I still don't feel the quickening from you anymore." Richie sounded intriged and concerned. "Perhaps you'll feel better with some rest." Sam replied. He hoped he would. Sam had been doing this a long time but it was still difficult to make himself at home in strange surroundings. After Richie retired Sam wondered around his room trying to get to know his host a little better. The room was sparse, it had few personal items such as family pictures, momentos from childhood etc. The few personal looking things like pictures and fancy toiletries, brushes, shaving accessories and so on were all antiques. This man seemed to be living in the past. Sam looked at his reflection again. He looked to be in his early thirties, extremly good shape, everything Sam always figured women would surely swoon over. Why was he living with this kid in a warehouse in what had to be one of the worst neighborhoods in the city? Something very weird was going on. Where was Al? Once again Sam was left clueless waiting for his partner. "Well" he said to himself "I might as well get some rest while I'm waiting." Sam was dead to the world as soon as his head hit the pillow. Part 4 Sam drifted in and out of sleep. Strange images kept swirling through his mind. Scenes of ancient places and far off lands. Through out it all, images of swords and blood. Sam even thought he heard someone calling his name. Sam awoke with a start, fearing for his life. He could hear a familiar chirping in the darkness. "Al," Sam whispered "is that you?" "Who do you think it is," Al replied in his normal loud and projecting voice. "the bogeyman?" Sam turned on a reading lamp by his bed. "It's about time you woke up." Al said "We have to figure this leap out, now." Sam pulled on his jeans and headed out of the room. "Come on." he said softly "The kid's asleep in the next room." Sam climbed a ladder to the roof, meeting Al who was already checking out the view of the surrounding neighborhood. "What do you have?" Sam said dropping the trap door shut. "Your name is Duncan Macleod." Al said right off "Ian McShane is an alias." "It's an alias? How'd Ziggy find Macleod?" Sam wasn't really surprised by the alias with the way these two were living. "Ziggy didn't find it." Al replied "Macleod told us." "What?" Sam said surprised "I thought you said he died?" "We thought he had." Al waived his cigar around and paced away from Sam a few steps. "The going theory is that the leap somehow effected him. We've never had anybody leap in mortally wounded before, leaping may have a healing effect." Al looked at his friend in his new persona. His long black hair blew in the breeze as he looked out over the surrounding decay. "That's not possible and you know it." Sam finally said after considering the theory. "It's the only thing we've come up with so far." "Well keep working on it. What else do you have for me?" Al hesitated again. "Something else your not going to like." "And that is?" "You, or should I say Macleod and his friend down there are going to be found in a corn field five days from now, dead." Al mumbled the last word. Sam went totally pale and looked visibly shaken. "Macleod was dying when I leaped in. If he's killed five days from now I've already changed history and its not him that gets killed." "Now listen to me Sam." Al said "You don't know that, you may leap before then. Besides, if Macleod survived after leaping perhaps he would have survived if you hadn't leaped in thus saving his head for the corn field." "Whoa," Sam jumped in "hold it right there. What did you mean by 'saving his head'?" Al hesitated and walked away from his friend a few steps. "Both Macleod and Ryan are not only killed in that corn field, but they're beheaded." Al said this with an absolutely sick look on his face. "Now wait a minute, Al." Sam said excitedly "I haven't had a chance to tell you the whole story of when I leaped in." Sam then finally related the details of what happened when he leaped in. "So you, er or Macleod had just beheaded this Lance fellow when you leaped in." Al had the standard puzzled look on his face. "Yea, see if you can dig up anything on this guy. He would have been found in a dock side warehouse. Oh, he also rode a classic Harley Davidson." "Anything else?" Al asked before leaving. "See what you can find out about something called The Quickening. Richie mentioned a couple of times that he couldn't feel it in me. What is it he can't feel." "The Quickening, huh?" Al said with a bit of a grin. "I'll see what I can do." "MAC!!" Sam was awakened by someone screaming his host's name. He could hear the sound of metal clashing and other sounds of scuffling. Wearing only the boxer shorts he slept in, Sam threw open his bedroom door just in time to see Richie get stabbed. A thin man, slightly taller then Richie stood with his back toward Sam. In front of him Richie stood like a rag doll with the man's sword protruding from his back. Blood poured from the young man's mouth and wounds as the life quickly drained from his body. Without thinking, Sam grabbed the Katana laying inside his door. He turned back just in time to see Richie drop from the man's sword to the floor. Richie landed on his knees doubled over clutching his abdomen his eyes wide watching the pool of blood growing around him. The man stepped to one side and with a slight flourish brought his sword above his head. Sam noticed from this new angle as he ran toward them that the man seemed to actually have a look of regret on his face. The intruder was totally oblivious to Sam until he let out a primal scream just before throwing himself at him. The two men went sliding across the slick wooden floor with swords flying in opposite directions. Sam jumped to his feet and took his standard fighting stance. "Who are you?!" Sam yelled "What are you doing here?!" Sam didn't know what to do, tend to the boy, or face this guy and protect himself. The man ignored Sam's near hysteria "Ah, Duncan Macleod, I didn't know you were here." The man looked at Sam strangely then at the still gasping form of Richie on the floor. "Your not one of us, were is the real Macleod?" Sam didn't reply he just started edging toward his sword to match the man's casual stroll toward his. When he leaned down to pick up his, Sam jumped to the Katana bringing it up to an on-guard stance. The man laughed "Don't worry, the game isn't for you." he put his sword under his trench coat and turned toward the door. "Now you tell Macleod that I'll be back for him, and maybe even the boy." Sam was dumb founded by the man's casualness after probably killing Richie. All he could utter "Why..who.." The man held the door open and looked back at Sam "Just tell him the Hunter came to vis.." the shutting door clip off the last word. Sam immediately dropped to Richie's side trying to tend to the wound. "Hold on kid, you'll be okay. Richie's blood covered hand reached up and grasped at Sam leaving red smears across his bare chest. Sam grabbed his hand and held it as Richie took his last breadth. A wave of panic swept over Sam and he tried to get away from the still form in front of him. Unable to get proper footing in the blood, Sam did a crawling scramble away from the body toward the phone. Just as he reached the phone heard his name being called.. "My God, Sam what happened!" Sam looked up to see Al near by still in his neon green coat. "Jesus, Sam are you okay?" "I'm okay" Sam gasped "but I think the boy is dead, I have to call the police!" "No don't!" "What?" "I found out about these people, you can't call the police." "I've got to call someone, there may still be hope for Richie." Al squatted down and looked directly in Sam's eyes. "You can't call the police. These people are part of some cult they've been running all over the place chopping each other's heads off. If you call the police, they'll try to connect you or Duncan to every bizarre murder this city has had in the past two years." "What do I do?" Sam asked, the room seemed to be spinning around him. "Go get cleaned up. I'll try to think of something." Al said. He then looked back at the gore and disappeared out his door of light. Sam stumbled to one of the bathrooms grabbing some clothes out of a laundry basket on the way. When he finished his shower he came back out to the main room hoping Al would be there with some ideas. Nobody was there, all he saw was the mess of blood in the middle of the room and two trails of foot prints leading from it. One was his leading to the bath room, the other lead to the kitchen. From this distance Sam could see the kitchen sink was smeared with blood as if someone had washed up there. Sam walked slowly out of the bathroom avoiding his own bloody foot prints. What was going on? Where was the boy's body? There's no way he could have survived that wound but it didn't look like anybody else had been here. Sam called hesitantly "Richie?" Sam headed for the katana laying on a chair by his room. The 'Hunter' may have come back. The door to the boy's room opened and Richie stumbled out. He wore a only pair gym shorts, was smeared with brown dried blood and looked extremely pale. In the middle of his chest was the scabbed over wound and he held his hand over his abdomen in pain. "It's about time you got out of the shower." the boy gasped as he shuffled by Sam. "You can start cleaning this place up and when I'm done with my shower, you can tell me who you are and where Duncan is." With that, Richie went into the bathroom and closed the door. to be continued..... =========================================================================