The Damaged and The Cobra

by Anthony Cicerone

The Damaged and the Cobra

  By Anthony Cicerone

  Copyright 2013 Anthony Cicerone

  The Damaged and the Cobra

  The convenience store on the corner of Main and Twelfth was on fire, and it stayed on fire. It didn’t matter how many tired frustrated firemen sprayed the blaze with water and foam, the building continued to burn. It burned all night, and in the morning, Aaron Barnes came to see.

  Barnes was almost comically useless some mornings. After the call had come in from Captain O’Reilly, Detective Lark “Cobra” Foster was out of bed, showered, and dressed in ten minutes, her blond hair pulled back into a neat ponytail. She paced around for another ten minutes watching Barnes stumble around in an odd haze, searching for clothes. Five minutes after that, he finally had his shoes on. Then she sat, tapping her foot, because he decided that he just had to make some coffee before they left.

  Her cell phone chirped intermittently the entire time with terse text messages from O’Reilly. She knew the grizzled old captain to be one of the most impatient people on the face of the planet. By the time, Lark pushed Barnes out the front door of his house, she figured O’Reilly was probably bleeding from the eyes out of frustration. She wrangled the tired Barnes through the cool morning and into her unmarked police cruiser, and in the seconds it took her to get inside, his too-full coffee was in the cup holder and he was asleep.

  She just sat and looked at him for a moment: her tall, dark, and handsome man, with his hypnotically black eyes, in which she constantly searched for something more than just her reflection. He was like a laser, focused and obsessive, meticulous even. It was hard to reconcile that man with the one she was looking at in the passenger seat of her car. She’d seen him get up before and not be like this, but sometimes he was. She didn’t get it.

  He claimed occasionally that his mind was damaged in some way that she couldn’t see or understand. He knew things--he saw things--that others didn’t. She believed that what he knew and saw were real, and she objected to his term “damaged”. Yet it still stuck in the back of her mind. Particularly at times like this.

  Barnes snorted and snored dramatically, and she began to think that he was faking it. She reached over and pulled his seatbelt over him and clicked it in place. Then she picked up his sloshing coffee and drank a few big gulps so it wouldn’t spill while she was driving. Barnes snuggled and smiled in his sleep like some lousy baby. She half expected him to start sucking his thumb. He was messing with her, and she wanted to smack him, but she didn’t because she couldn’t really know for sure if it was an act or not.

  But she bet it was, especially since he continued to snore loudly, something he never did in bed. She drove briskly towards the address the Captain had sent her, trying to decide whether or not she should totally backhand the man she loved.

  After five minutes of snoring, Lark had had enough. “Barnes!” she yelled and punched him on the shoulder.

  He didn’t move, but his eyes opened and he looked at her. “What is it?” He was wide awake, with no sign of tiredness in his voice.

  She glanced at the beautiful void of his odd eyes and felt bad for hitting him. But not too bad. “Your snoring is driving me crazy. Just wake up already, will you? I’m starting to get the feeling you’re messing with me.”

  He sat up in his seat, fully alert. He reached for his coffee and looked in the cup. “You drink some of my coffee?” he asked before drinking some himself.

  “You’re not, are you?” Lark asked.

  “Not what?” he said as he sipped at his coffee.

  “Messing with me. It would kind of piss me off if you were being difficult on purpose,” she said as she looked at him, hoping for a good answer. He just sipped away. Her eyes narrowed, expecting a response of some kind within seconds or there was going to be trouble.

  “I wouldn’t do that to you, cherie.”

  She pretended that she hated his pet names for her, but in reality, they made her feel cocooned in some strange way, warm. He wouldn’t waste a love name on a lie, so she believed him. “Well then, what? You’ve been a real pain this morning.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Just, what?” She knew there was something.

  “I just had a rough night. That’s all.”

  “What are you talking about? We were both asleep all night. I was there, draped all over you like a blanket in case you forgot.”

  “I had a rough night in my dreams,” he said, his voice somber. He sighed.

  She knew that he lived in a different world than she did, that strange damaged world that he couldn’t really explain. She knew that if she asked him to explain how he’d had a rough night in his dreams, he would just blow her off. She felt most times like he wanted to tell her things, but he wouldn’t or couldn’t. Considering some of the stuff she’d witnessed in her time with him, Lark felt like it was good not to know. She was kind of scared to know too much about Barnes’s life. But she knew that there would come a time when she’d have to bite the bullet and go all in if she wanted a future with that man. She couldn’t spend the rest of her life with him and be a bystander. She had to open her mind, steel herself, and start getting her feet wet.

  “Explain that,” she said. “And before you blow me off…” She looked him in the eyes. “I want to know. Seriously, just tell me.”

  She drove through the morning streets, her gaze steady through the windshield. She could feel those black eyes of his on her. Her heart beat a little faster, and she was both frightened and hopeful that he would tell her something. She cursed herself silently for being afraid.

  “It was difficult for me to fully wake because part of my consciousness was stuck in a dream. Every once in awhile, in the dream world, I’m attacked by a creature called—“

  “Okay!” she said.

  They drove in silence for a minute. He wanted to share his life with her, but… She just couldn’t get around the fact that supernatural things terrified her. It had been bad enough to wonder about the existence of spirits or weird creatures all her life, only to find out they were real, but it was even worse finding out that her boyfriend had been fighting a monster while she was sleeping in the same bed with him. The thought chilled her.

  “You said you wanted to know.” Barnes said softly.

  “I know I did, and I do,” she paused. “It’s just scary, Barnes. It’s scary, but I’m trying.”

  The convenience store was on fire, that was for sure. Lark pulled her vehicle as close as she could get to the scene, lost in a choir of police cars and fire trucks. Barricades kept onlookers and press back. Barnes got out of the car and Lark followed. Barnes had his cold imperious mask on, and the cops and firemen stepped aside as if dodging the black bullet of strangeness that was her lover. She walked behind him, close enough to benefit from the parting of the first responder sea, but far enough behind to catch the sneers directed at Barnes by her fellow officers.

  And there were the murmured comments, the whispers. She was sleeping with the freak, the outsider, the man that handled what the police couldn’t handle or were afraid of. They hated Aaron Barnes, and they hated her for loving him but they would never dare say anything directly to her face.

  She was a valued member of the detective squad. She’d earned her nickname, The Cobra, for her quick, decisive, and deadly actions during a bank robbery and shootout where she had single-handedly disarmed not one, but two, of the bad guys. Her reputation protected her from too much gossip and rumor. But not all unfortunately.

  She and Barnes reached the frazzled, caffeinated blur that was Captain O’Reilly, a twitchy live-wire of impatience. The fire roared thirty feet behind him. The convenience store was gone, only fire was left. Lark cou
ld feel the heat from where they were standing. It reminded her of sitting too close to a campfire.

  O’Reilly gritted his teeth and snorted when he saw Barnes. Lark would have laughed if O’Reilly hadn’t been so angry.

  “Sorry we’re late, Captain,” Barnes said, his voice so calm and low it made Lark tingle. “We had a little trouble this morning. Unavoidable, I’m afraid.”

  She watched Barnes put his hand on the Captain’s shoulder, and Lark half expected O’Reilly’s teeth to snap at it like a terrier at a pants leg. But that did not happen. Instead, the Captain calmed down and collected himself, ratcheting himself down a notch or two to his regular spastic self.

  “Well, hell, Barnes,” he growled, “I just don’t like standing’ around like some lunk-head. I’m supposed to be in charge, you know!”

  “Like I said, sorry,” Barnes said, turning his attention to the fire. “So, what’s all this, Captain?”

  “We can’t put the blasted fire out!” O’Reilly said. “They been dumping’ water on the sucker all night long, and nothin’!”

  Lark walked up next to Barnes and watched him watch at the fire. He had that look of manic intensity he always had when strangeness was happening. She looked up into his face and saw the fire reflected in those shadowy eyes, his face a mask of concentration and…worry? She looked at the fire, close enough for it to feel like a blast furnace, and she could see bits of metal melting into slag and a few remnants of brick wall charring away into ash.

  But the fire still burned, even with no fuel, no apparent gas line, no nothing. The blaze continued to roar like a bonfire. That was impossible, and it creeped her out. Even in the middle of the morning sun, surrounded by hundreds of people, standing next to Barnes, she was still creeped out. She looked back at Barnes. He wasn’t looking at the fire any more. He was looking at her. He smiled at her, and she smiled back. No matter what else, when he looked at her, she was the most important thing in the world to him at that moment. That made her happy.

  He reached down and picked up a chunk of pavement. He looked at it closely and whispered something she could not hear. He offered her the rock with another smile.

  “Here,” he said, “throw this into the fire.”

  She took the rock tentatively. “What?”

  “Just toss it in the fire, and let’s go get some breakfast.”

  Lark threw the rock the twenty five or thirty feet into the determined blaze. Nothing happened.

  “Okay,” Barnes said as he stepped over to Captain O’Reilly. “You can put it out now.”

  “Just like that?” O’Reilly asked.

  “Just add water,” Barnes said, and he started back towards the car. Lark shrugged at O’Reilly and followed Barnes. The gauntlet of dirty looks and whispers waited. She heard O’Reilly call for fire chief, and by the time she was at her car, the fire was dwindling under a steady stream of water, and only a column of black smoke remained, rising into the morning sky. Barnes was already in the car, and in moments they were away.

  “So? Give. What was that all about?” Lark said.

  “It was a Hobo Fire,” Barnes said, and he seemed concerned about that fact.

  “Well, of course it was,” Lark tried but failed to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

  “Only a hobo can start one, and only a hobo can put one out.”

  “Yeah, but, as far as I know, and correct me if I’m wrong, you’re not a hobo.” She glanced at him. “Are you?”

  “No, I’m not a hobo.” He grimaced when he said it.

  “Holy crap!” Lark gasped.

  “What?”

  “I just remembered!” she said. “I saw a hobo on Tuesday. A real, honest to goodness one.”

  “You saw a hobo?” Barnes’s voice was like steel. “What was it doing? Did it have a bindle?”

  “It?” Lark said as she looked into Barnes’s flinty face. That look bothered her. “He was walking down the street. And, the bindle is the bag on the stick, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yeah, he had one of those. I thought he was going to a costume party or something. It didn’t pop back into my head until you mentioned the word ‘hobo’ just now.”

  “Where was it?” Barnes asked, a look of anger growing on his face.

  “Sixteenth and Maple. Near the rec center. And why are you calling him ‘it’?”

  “Take us over there.” It sounded like a command.

  That was not going to fly. Lark pulled the car over and she shut off the engine. She looked at him, wide-eyed and expectant, in silence, half smiling. His steely face softened after a few seconds too long, and he faced the windshield.

  “Lark, my petite love, could you drive us over there, please? This could be big trouble.”

  “Tell me why.” And she meant it. She was going to prove to herself that she could run in the circles that rippled out from Aaron Barnes. She was going to prove it to him, too.

  “Are you sure?” he asked, genuinely, carefully.

  “Tell me.” She started up the engine and pulled back out into traffic. “Tell me on the way.”

  It was a few moments before he said anything, like he was trying to figure out exactly the right words. “Okay,” he began, “hobos are not human beings. Not like you and me.”

  “That’s not very politically correct.”

  “I’m not talking about homeless people, Lark. Those are just people without a place to live. Hobos are evil creatures. They are child-catchers, murderers, and rape-artists. They’re petty sorcerers, dog-eaters, fire-starters. They were human once, but anything redeemable in them is lost. They are monsters. Nothing more.”

  “But who are you to say? Maybe—“

  “No, Lark.” Barnes said forcefully. “This is not my opinion. This is fact. They’re monsters. Please believe me. If there were some way to save these things, I would do it, but there isn’t. They have to be put down.”

  “You’re going to kill the hobo?” Lark said, her voice a little more shrill and alarmed than she intended.

  “Look, if we find a person coincidentally dressed like hobo, then of course not. But the fire at the convenience store tells me that there’s probably an actual hobo running around my town. If there is, then yes, I’m going to kill it. Happily.”

  “But this is crazy,” Lark said. “What about all the hobos back in the great depression? You’re telling me that all those people were actually monsters? There are hobo clowns at the circus, for crying out loud.”

  “The things that became hobos existed well before the Great Depression, even before this country existed. They look different in other countries, but here, the ancient pestilence that’s passed down from person to person dresses like hobos.”

  “So not all hobos are these creatures, but all these creatures are hobos?” she asked with a burgeoning headache.

  “Right, in America. Other places, they look like something else,” Barnes said. “It’s an ageless evil, like vampirism. Someone gets infected by a hobo, they turn into one. And there’s no coming back, and they’re completely lost.”

  They drove along in silence for a half mile. God, but Lark was sorry she’d started this. Now there were monster hobos creeping around. And did he mention vampires? Good grief, she didn’t even want to ask if they were real or not. She felt sick at her stomach. She and Barnes were looking for what he claimed was a monster. And they were going to kill it. And it looked human. Her guts were twisting.

  “You’re sure?” she asked, sighing.

  “One hundred percent.” He looked at her. “Lark, you don’t have to do anything. Just drop me off. I realize you want to know more about what I do, but you can’t expect to just leap in head first. These are fantastic, horrible, wonderful things, but I don’t want you involved if it’s going to hurt what we have. I don’t want to lose you because of what I do. That’s why I try and keep you clear of it.”

  “I know.” She was quiet for a beat or three. “I’m in on this one at least. Just once, I want t
o see your world. I can’t guarantee I’ll hack it out all the way, but I can tell you that you’re not going to lose me. I’ll still love you, even if I decide I don’t want any details about the things you do.”

  They drove around the area for an hour, crisscrossing strip malls, fast food parking lots, and winding, weed-choked alleys. There was nothing.

  Barnes suddenly spoke. “Turn here,” he said, at the mouth of an alley that ran between two older brick buildings. His head was cocked, and he looked as if he was hearing a strange noise. There was a man standing in the alley, and he looked like a hobo. The man took one look at the police car and he started walking the other way. Barnes was out of the cruiser instantly, dashing down the alley. “Hey, tramp!” He yelled.

  Lark slammed the car in park and was out as quick as she could. Her hand on her gun, she ran up to Barnes, ready to draw. The hobo was in his fifties, gray stubble and blue eyes, with a tattered top hat and a ratty suit. It was not the hobo she saw, he didn’t have a bindle, and he certainly didn’t look like a monster. The hobo looked at her and his eyes widened. Barnes put his hand up.

  “We’re not here to roust you, brother.” Barnes said as he dug into his pocket and produced a five dollar bill. “Here’s a sawbuck for your stake.”

  The old man took the five and his blue eyes scanned Barnes. When he spoke, he spoke with a calm, gentle voice. “You talk the talk, friend, but do you walk the walk?” He put the money in his pocket.

  “I walked with Mumbling Jimmy Wagner for two years.”

  The old man gasped. “You’re Aaron Barnes!” He reached out and grabbed Barnes by the hand and nearly shook it off. An awestruck smile was plastered across his face. Barnes shook back and patted the hobo on the shoulder. Lark was beginning to think that this was not a hobo. “I’m Whistlin’ Bob. Pleased to meetcha!”

  “Whistling Bob, I’ve heard of you,” Barnes said as they stopped shaking hands. “Heard through the grapevine that you finally got Joey Cleveland.”

  “Oh I punched his ticket real—“ Bob stopped and looked at Lark suspiciously. “Say, what’s with the bull? She wise?”

  Barnes put his arm around Lark. “She ain’t wise, but she’s jake. I vouch.”

  “Well, in that case.” He held his hand out for Lark to shake. She had no idea what was going on, but Barnes seemed okay with the old man, so that meant she was too. She shook his hand.

  “Officer Lark Foster. Nice to meet you.” She noticed that Bob was not dirty, just well worn.