Chapter 1 Part 1(Revival)

Jason 'Shadow' Parker, a man of infamy, celebrates his immortality with friends, and prepares for a night of fate.

 

 

Extraordinary Rendition

By Saskia Liddick

 

 

Chapter 1

 

 

The sun shone through the water of San Francisco Bay with nothing less than perfect clarity. People leapt out of beds to soak in the way clouds methodically painted the fairy flax blue skies. Boats raced across the bay, water skies tore open white gashes in the blue ocean, and people found the confidence to jump off boats and into the water where fish could be clearly seen darting around like butterflies in the water.

June eight was a day of carelessness for almost everyone. As people splashed by, none of them looked up at the manor. It was ghostly beautiful, the way the house stood in total solitude. It was once the eye sore of San Francisco, back in 1926. The house sheltered the millionaire family, the Faber family. One day though, neighbors watched on as Harper and Allen Faber packed minimal clothing, documents, and the cat into a car and drove off, leaving behind two things. One was a letter, a request that the house be left to rot into nothingness. No one should ever open the gates for anything. So chains and padlocks sealed the property since, and the Ocean View Manor was left to smolder and fade into gray with the rest of History. The second was a secret that hid inside of the house. A secret that moved into the house when the Faber couple moved out. Someone protected by the letter and the last thing on the minds of San Francisco citizens. Their daughter was left behind in the house too. Beautiful Frescia Faber was never seen again.

 

People sat in the living room early that pure morning, fidgeting as they looked at the clock. Somebody must have taken the cogs and wheels out of it. Every time someone lookup up hopefully, it seemed to have hardly budged. The man who sat closest to the crumbling oak door seemed the most excited. He pushed hazel hair out of his amber eyes and looked towards the door, waiting for some sign of life on the other side. Others sitting down and around looked just as and noting less than anxious. A long white ferret the size of a lioness sat curled under a coffee table, looking a little bored.

Everyone looked like they were ready to follow the animal as it put both paws over its eyes and fell into slumber, when the man at the door whispered, “here he comes.”

At those words everyone stood up, and listened to the footsteps that moved slowly down the hall.

            “He walks like his age,” the ferret said.

            “Weasel quiet,” the man at the door snapped.

The footsteps stopped just outside the door, and everyone seemed to have frozen in time, like someone had taken a great big remote control and hit ‘pause’. The spell of silence and excitement broke when the doorknob opened slowly and pushed into the room even slower.

The figure on the other side was tall, dark clothes that could have been cut out of black parachutes hung around a thin body. The face of the figure was pale, tired, but young. The jaded blue eyes looked at the people who stood in the room and yelled, “Happy birthday Shadow!” to which he yelled back in a thick British accent, “Damn it Soho you weren’t suppose to remind me!” and turned around to try and hit the man by the door, who jumped out of the way retorting cheerfully, “No use bitching about something that happened 57 years ago! You complain about age like a human does.”

            “Fifty-seven years…” Shadow moaned and sat down in a stuffed chair, looking at all the happy faces that eagerly put presents down on top of the coffee table. It was true, Shadow didn’t age the way that humans did, he had finished aging when he was 26 years old, became immortal, just like the rest of the faces before him. He thought about why they still kept track of his age while the ferret strangely named Weasel crawled out and placed a dead mouse on his lap.

            “Happy Birthday, Shadow.” He said sticking his tongue out at the man who looked disgustingly out at the little creature’s forehead.

            “You’re a sick creature, Weasel,” Shadow said and flicked the dead rodent away, only to be replaced by a tiny gift. It hadn’t even been wrapped, it didn’t need to be. The ornate design of the pocket watch glimmered in the absence of the sunlight that was hidden by huge curtains.

Shadow looked up at the girl with flaming red hair and sparkling green eyes.

            “You always complain about not knowing what time it is, it seemed appropriate.” She said in a soft voice, like willow leaves blowing in a summer breeze.

            “Thanks love,” Shadow said and hugged Frescia Faber before being over-come by even more presents. Most of the presents were clothes, mostly socks (“When you think the world has turned on you, there are always new socks.” Was Shadow’s philosophy) but along with them came poetry books, a hefty notebook from Spieren, fudge from Soho, and a card from his brothers. It was 3 in the afternoon by the time Shadow had opened up every bag of new socks, had attempted to poison Weasel with the fudge from Soho, and everyone finally settled down as an old man that looked very much like a basset hound sat down at the coffee table and pushed the wrapping paper aside to reveal a blue print. As the old man named Ezra took up a tiny pencil no longer than an infant’s middle finger, people passed around the fudge that was apparently made for Shadow. Shadow didn’t mind it; he had never trusted Soho’s cooking anyway. Soho was the con artist of the century, but the best worst cook. Some how he had managed to make this desert without burning the edges or catching someone fire. He deserved applause for that one. (“He probably got his father to cook it for him, or stole it.” One of the girls muttered as she ate at the chocolate slowly, half expecting to see traces of arsenic inside).

The afternoon dragged on in silence as people munched slowly on the fudge, and Soho watching each face trying to find approval. It was five o’clock when Ezra finally declared, “finished” and slamming the pencil down with a sense of superiority. Shadow slid down from his chair, causing an avalanche with the packets of socks and presents as he did so.

            “This is the entire layout?” Shadow asked, running his index finger down the faint pencil marks that had been painfully etched into the blue print.  

            “Yes it is,” Ezra said with satisfaction covering his voice like a fur coat covers a woman in winter.

Shadow observed the trail Ezra had made carefully, noting where Soho and Dawn had marked the general positions of guards in the different exhibit rooms. He was going to at least need Soho with him, Soho had memorized everything, and could even pick the locks when they got to the testing room, that was down in the basement wasn’t it? Yes, it was.

Shadow looked carefully at all of the members before him, trying to figure out who would be needed for this heist. Spieren could do well, he was quiet and strong. Dawn too, he would make a good look out.

Everyone looked at Shadow carefully, waiting for him to come to the conclusion of who would help him with the mission. It was another hour when Shadow said, “Soho, you’re coming with me, Spieren, Dawn, and Weasel are coming with me. Spieren, Dawn and Weasel, you’ll be look out posts; Soho is coming with me to find the experiment and get him out. Everyone else you’ll stay here tonight.”

Those whose names were called out looked excited and a little nervous. Spieren was a chocolate skinned man with a heavyset jaw, and his eyes sparkled when he fantasized breaking into the Museum. Dawn was a skeleton with empty sockets that were a shimmering steel color with lust. Soho bubbled over and stood up saying, “let’s go now!”

Shadow shook his head and said, “we’re going to wait until closing time and almost everyone has gone home. They don’t have the cameras since Soho tampered them last week. So they have normal people patrolling that just means we have to be more careful, get me?” Shadow looked sharply at each person’s fore head. They all nodded understandingly and said, “just say when you’re ready, Shadow.”

Shadow nodded in reply and said, “I need a few hours, that’s all,” and stood, walking out of the room.

 

The day had ended all too soon for those who played in the water of San Francisco Bay. Almost everyone finished the day with a burger or dinner at their favorite restaurant and maybe a drive around town, enjoying the warm night air. It felt too good to be true to many of those people as they sat sharing chocolate milkshakes and eating their hamburgers. For some people that night brought apprehension, that apprehension was work. So the guards of the San Francisco Museum grudgingly put on their uniforms, kissed their wives goodnight with the promise they would be back the next morning, and started out to take the graveyard shift.

Author's Note

Ok, so Hi, my name is Saskia, I've been writing for four years, maybe more, can't remember. This is my novel I've been working on for five years in September (yeah!). This is the revived chapter 1, and all of the chapters are going to be like Chapter 1 pt. 1 and all that jazz, because these chapters are long ones, so it will spare your sanity. :) Enjoy and review!
Liefde - Saskia

Reviews

[WriterSki7]

Wow. Now THAT's a good chapter. Honestly something you should be proud of after spending so long to write it (assuming you take a decent amount of time to write things). Very well written, well composed, could use a little depth but I like it. In retrospect it's similiar to a lot of my work; which is probably why I like it. Excellent job.