Eliot Strange and the Prince of the Apocalypse

18) The Prince

The prince is not in the locker room, but it is not hard to figure out where he might be. We head up the stairs on the other end of the hall to the history wing. We find him sitting in Mr. Ramsay's room drinking a Coke.

"You left some behind yesterday," he says in his now British accent.

"Holy shit, it is really you. Really, Prince Torin," says the President of the local fan club.

"It is not me," says the Prince. "I am Jack Taylor."

Steven looks down as if he is uncertain what to say next. "Your Royal Highness, I am embarrassed to say, I peeked before I ran away. I saw the scar."

"We did," I say, "sorry about looking and all, but we did see your scar."

The prince pauses and then smiles and says, "Yes, I guess you both did see more than I care to admit. I am Prince Torin of Wales, and you are Steven Lindquist. Called Lindy by your friends."

Steven's mouth literally drops open. "Sir, how did you know my name?"

"You are the president of my fan club," says the prince. He holds up a East Central yearbook from several years back. "You, I am not sure about." He points to me. "This book that I found that documents your high school days is older, and I suppose a girl can change quite a bit in a few years, but I don't think you are in this photo of my fan club members. Although, this picture of the girl here with braces and pigtails is similar. It could be you. Though your hair is darker now, almost black. But, you could have dyed it."

I feel defensive for some reason. "I don't dye my hair. At least, not this color."

"Yes," he says looking again at the photo. "And your eyes are darker now I see. Contacts?"

I feel myself getting mad. "These are my real eyes." How dumb, did I just say that out loud?

"Well, for sure, you could probably not tame that wild hair into pigtails. But, Maybe?"

He holds the yearbook close to my face so I can see the picture. It is a picture of a group devoted to the worship of this royal pain in the butt. He points to a girl on the front row who could be my twin from those days. I am thanking my fourteen year old self. Thank goodness I had the foresight to recognize that I did not want to be immortalized as a member of the Prince Torin Fan Club for posterity and did not to go to the photo shoot that day.

I shake my head. "Not me and not a fan."

"Oh, I guess you are one of my Twitter fans then. One million strong."

I shake my head.

"Instagram?"

"No."

"Snapchat?"

"No, not a fan."

Steven intercedes on my behalf. "She's weird, not your typical teenager. Never on her phone. Sometimes she doesn't text me back, or at least she didn't before our cell phones quit working." He sighs loudly. "Ahh, the good old days. Back before the world went crazy. But, don't worry. I am a huge fan. And, we both are here to help you. There are people looking for you. We've seen your face on wanted posters. They have offered a reward. We're here to rescue you."

"Uh, thank you, but what can Steven Lindquist, called Lindy by his friends and....". Prince Torin stops here and looks at me, "I don't know what your proper name is. I could call you by a nickname as well, maybe Burpy Girl or Not-A-Fan or how about Steady?"

"My name is Eliot Strange, though Not-A-Fan will work too."

He pauses here as if in thought, and I am thinking he is going to make some smartass comment about my last name, but he recovers. "Ah, pardon my presumptions, but because of your uncanny ability to remain calm in a crisis and remain with the mission at hand, which I assume today was - use your keen observation skills to record to memory any pertinent data vital to the mission - I believe I will call you Tom. Peeping Tom."

Steven laughs. I give him my that-was-not-funny look and come back to the prince with, "Well, I don't know why I hung around so long observing because there was so little information to record."

"Ah, there's my girl. I am positive that I am going to call you Steady Elie because you absolutely can not be rattled at all."

I roll my eyes and take a Coke for myself. I take a big drink, wipe my mouth off, and burp real loud. I waste no words, "You are a fool. You are hiding in a place where you killed some men yesterday. Their friends may come looking for them."

"Yes, very unfortunate. I had to kill them. They were dead set on killing us. There was no time for negotiation. I am saddened by their demise." And he did look sad about it, but he added. "I hid the dead men."

"Where?"

"In the room nobody wants to go in. The room with the bad smell at the front of the school. The room with the two little girls. A very sad place. I do not want to go back there."

"Is that what's in there?" asks Steven. "Thanks Elie for making sure I didn't see that. You got to hand it to our prince, that was smart."

"Thank you Steven whose friends call you Lindy."

"You are welcome, Prince Torin."

"No," I say to Steven, "We are not going to call him Prince or Your Majesty or Your Highness or anything that tells who he is to someone else. And you," I say to the prince, "You are going back to the American accent. We'll call you Jack. That should be easy to remember."

"Is the real Jack dead?" asks Steven.

The prince nods without saying anything. Again, he looks sad, and I find myself feeling sorry for him. What has he seen? It has been weeks and weeks since the EMP. It is a long way from Washington to here.

"You do look a lot like Jack," says Steven. "It will be easy to remember."

"I understand," he says without the accent that is so disarming and, I hate to admit it, so damn sexy. "Someone is looking for me. I hope it is not these guys." He taps the 1 on his jacket. "I got this off a dead man, but not before he killed some innocent people."

"Don't worry Jack," says Steven, "we'll protect you now."

"But first," I say, "give me that jacket. We've got to get rid of it. And that yearbook. Steven, we have a new mission." I smile at the prince, "And our new mission does not involve spying on bathing beauties."

"I appreciate that, Tom, I mean Steady Elie, but what is the new mission? Can I help?" asks the new Jack.

I show him the newspaper with his beautiful face on it. "I think that might defeat our purpose since we are going to try to collect as many of these as we can. You need to stay hidden. We'll be back later when we're finished."

He looks at his picture before the beard. "Oh this is terrible. I hate this photograph. It does not capture my best side at all. Please tear them all down and burn them please. What will my fans think?" 

The prince smiles his best smile at Steven and me. I cannot tell if he is being sarcastic, or if he is just the most conceited person I have ever met. Since he keeps smiling at me like I am somehow under his spell, I'm going with conceited.

On the way back to my house, we stop at Nana's house to check on her. She is munching on an apple on the front porch.

"Tomorrow," she says, "Jim Newsome is coming to get me in the morning about nine o'clock. He sent word."

We get Steven's bike out of the garage.

"Where you two headed off to? You gonna ride your bicycles. That will be fun."

"Yes, Nana. We're going for a ride," I say, "just like the old days."

"Well, y'all be careful. Jim said about everybody's gone now. Done up and left. He says that mean One Army will be here soon. I want y'all leaving too, by tomorrow, and no later than day after."

Steven gets on his bike. "We will Nana. We are all packed and ready to go. I'll be back tonight to spend the night with you one last time."

It is not lost to me or Steven that Nana, the bravest spitfire we know, has a little shake in her voice. Even Nana, who can shoot lights out and is a former county fair turkey shoot queen, is afraid.

"No worries, Nana," I say as I pat my gun. "You know we can look after ourselves."

I get on the back of Steven's bike and wave to Nana as we leave.