7.

To best balance the future, perhaps, the present-day battle should retreat to the past and duke it out until an agreement can be made or until an end to the war of all time can come to a conclusion. The best way to win an all-out war is to go all out.

The past ... why hasn't Sammy thought of this before? He was there, wasn't he? ... and for the whole four years too ... No, that cannot be possible. In the underworld slum town, the man at the entrance just beyond the veil, the old man behind the fiery oil drum, it is or at least was he Christopher Lenard Furlong.

Nah really, it can't be possible. That old man would have been older then than what Chris was when Sammy met him on New Year's Day 2018 so how can someone be older in 2002 than what they would be in 2018? Sammy should know by now that strange things exist. He did not know of Chris in 2002, that's why nothing clicked back then or during all the time Sammy himself was there. Sure, they only had the one actual meeting. Could Chris have disappeared from the café in 2018 only to end up back in the past and if he had then couldn't that in itself be enough to break him?

Alright, if Chris somehow had been sent into the past to a point pre 2002 then what are the chances that such a version of him could still be alive in September of 2018? Only one way to find out. That in itself to would mean that Sammy would have to go back there, go back to a place he swore he would not go back to. Satan had told him he'd be back, and Sammy thought he knew better.

Oh, the distress of this thought. His insides suddenly feel heavy as if they have already sunk down into an opened-up hole in the ground that hasn't opened up at all. He is swallowed up whole without actually having done anything yet about this ... revelation of his.

Time is not wasted for it may already have been depending on the fact as to if Christopher Furlong is still alive. Is he still down in that slum town after all this time? What kind of condition could his mind be in if he is alive and living in a place filled with oddities and evil?

At the entrance to that place there stands a person, a woman, a lady who has already done the impossible at a prior time in another place. Sammy sees her long before he begins moving down a steep decline that will lead him down to where he needs to be.

'Do I know you? Have I seen you before?' Sammy asks of the lady once he comes into her company.

'I have been waiting for you Samuel ...'

'You have? Who are you?'

'There is no time for answers ... you must do what you have come here to do ...'

'And that is?'

'There is someone here you must find. His time is limited. I cannot pass beyond the veil and there is nothing I can do from out here.'

'But ... what ...'

'Go ... time is short.'

Over time people dither about while others move with purpose, indeed not all who wander down here can gain entry. A thin force field like barrier, a veil of darkness keeps out unwanted guests be they of light or be they of no-good use for the one who lives in shadow. Sammy can, gain entry that is, for he certainly has been here before. He can basically come and go as he pleases, and it may even please Darkness to know that Sammy has made a return.

Motive is quite different now as is age. Sammy was young and impressionable way back when; he probably even needed the experience of the years he spent down here so he could become the man he was meant to be. Darkness had plans for Sammy before and he may yet still have plans for Sammy now.

Sammy is not interested in Darkness, not in this exact moment; he is here on business. His interest lies with Christopher Furlong as it also now apparently lies with a lady with some sort of familiarity who is standing just outside the veil. In he goes and the oil drum is right where he remembers it to have been, right inside the veil, and it even has a fire going within it as it always seems to have, however there is no one standing behind it on this occasion like there always had seemed to be before.

Fearing he is too late, possibly years too late and maybe even already too late when he first came here as a boy, Sammy looks round. There is an older man sitting on a step nearby who has his head in his hands. Sammy moves to him quickly and discovers that it is the guy he remembers to have been here and this guy is also Christopher Furlong.

'You came back for me ...' he says to an approaching Sammy.

'Of course, c'mon, maybe we can have that conversation we never properly got to have before. I'll help you up and we'll get out of here.'

Sammy takes the man by his right wrist and gets a good look at his face for the first time since returning here. The eyes, they are glazed over. He had forgotten about that. The crazy old man behind the burning oil drum always had glazed eyes. Yeah, this man is Christopher Furlong only he is older, much older than when Sammy met him on New Year's Day 2018 and at that point in time Chris would have been in his late fifties at least. In the here and now which is actually only a little over eight months since New Year's Day Chris appears to be hitting his eighties.

Yeah, he had been taken and sent back in time which indeed explains a couple of things.

'Well, it's too late for either of those things ... much too late ...' he says appearing to be having a moment of lucidity. 'I'm no good to anyone.'

'Christopher ... if you just come with ...'

'Come with you where?'

'Just outside for a start and we can see where that leaves us ...

'See where that leaves us? I cannot see, I haven't been able to see for a long time, maybe I never really did see at all. I was blind all along, even when my eyes worked. I can't leave here either, don't you understand that? I can never leave. I'll die the second I pass through that veil ...'

'You won't, I promise ...'

'What? Ya think Satan is just gonna let me walk out of here ... ha ... like hell he will ... I'm a dead man walking. It's unlikely that he will ever let you leave either, and you should know better than most.'

As the two men talk it becomes clear to Sammy that whatever moment of lucidity Chris is in it is coming to an end. He is getting edgy, fidgety ... antsy and is now up on his feet. If Sammy doesn't get anything else out of him now, then he may never get anything.

'There is someone out there who can help ...'

Chris begins to laugh; insanity is once again getting the better of him. How he managed so much of a conversation up to this point is actually quite something. He runs both is hands through whatever hair he still has, more out of despair than anything else then he stands. 'I ... I ... I'd like to help ... my time is gone ... it's gone.'

He takes one step backwards then a second step and then a third.

'Chris, please ...'

'Remember, always remember ... She must not go through the gates ... she must not go through the gates ...'

'Who, Chris? What gates?'

'The one who hurt you ... she didn't mean to ya know ... Whatever you do from here on out, do not restore my line ... there are no do-overs ... even if she wants restoration ... leave it be ...'

With that Christopher Lenard Furlong turns his head and then is gone. Ever see a blind man run? It is not funny, but he navigates this place as well as any sighted person can and at his age too ... as strange at that is, it is not the strangest thing down here. There is nothing more for Sammy in this place now, or maybe there is. He begins to move towards the veil and thinks to himself that this is too easy.

A first return to this place in in quite the amount of time. To go in, seek to a degree what he came to seek and then leave without a hint of Darkness. His thoughts have come a little too soon. As it goes ... never count your chickens. He should have waited until he at least cleared the veil. A voice speaks from behind.

'Hello Samuel ... so good to see you've come back home.'