by Mike McCrary
Copyright © 2020 by Mike McCrary
Cover by www.onegraphica.com/
This is a work of fiction in which all names, characters, places and events are imaginary. Where names of actual celebrities, organizations and corporate entities are used, they’re used for fictional purposes and don’t constitute actual assertions of fact. No resemblance to anyone or anything real is intended, nor should it be inferred.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means without the written consent of the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts for the purpose of review or promotion.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
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About the Author
Acknowledgments
The Unstable One
Mike McCrary
To all the good people in my life, and most of the bad ones.
It is madness for sheep to talk peace with a wolf. – Thomas Fuller
Chapter 1
Noah pours himself the last drink of his life.
Drains it, then pours one last one for Kate.
They don’t always work together, management prefers the husband and wife work separate shifts, but it does happen from time to time. The entire bar and restaurant could easily be automated, but humans still find enjoyment in the pursuit of attractive humans, and Kate and Noah more than qualify. The illusion starts to crumble if the patrons know they are married, so they’re scheduled different hours. Noah and Kate are fully aware of this.
Don’t love it, don’t hate it.
It simply is.
They’ve got bills to pay.
Noah and Kate are thankful to work at all. Kate lost one of her other jobs, a checkout gig at a store closer to the house, because of automation redundancies. That’s what they told her. Noah lost his ride-share gig for the same reason.
Noah wipes down the counter and waits for his wife to finish her paperwork. Ever since they first met, they had shared a drink at the end of their shifts. Fate brought them together at this moderately fancy downtown steak house a few years ago. A flash of eyes. Infatuated smiles. A chemical connection slammed into them like a hurricane.
They were studying at the state university, both care of the GI Bill, and they earned rent slinging sauce and serving finely prepared meat at the before mentioned moderately fancy place of employment.
Kate studied economics and finance. She even interned at an investment management firm one summer. Truly enjoyed the behavioral economics side of it.
Restaurant and hotel management for him. The hospitality trade fits his personality.
On that night a while back, Noah had poured himself a drink and proceeded to drink it down without offering one to his new coworker with the soul-melting gaze.
“Truly some rude shit, man,” she said, holding back a smile.
“Dammit.” Noah mumbled, stuttered, fumbled, then immediately offered her a drink, along with a thick slice of apologetic charm. She accepted, bit her lip, then gave him a thumbs-up.
That was it.
It was all over for him.
Her too, but she’d never admit it.
Tonight, in step with their tradition, Kate throws back her shot, bites her lip, then pops a thumbs-up into the air. A lot has happened over the years, but a lot has remained the same.
Still a hurricane-style chemical collision.
Fellow employees passing by want to make a joke but know better. Some want to stop and bitch about work, but they see this is a moment not to be messed with.
The intoxicating smell of a good steak prepared well fills the air. Sizzles and pops sound off from the kitchen, along with the occasional chorus of profanity from the staff. Noah is convinced his skin will forever hold the stink of whiskey, red wine and locally brewed beer. Her chestnut brown hair will always smell of grilled meat. Hands will forever hold the scent of loaded baked potatoes. Their personal pheromone.
Kate’s fingers gently graze his booze-soaked hands as she locks her eyes with his.
“I have to pump and dump now, asshole.”
“Apologies.” Noah grins, then pours himself another.
Playfully, she shoves him away before gliding off to finish shutting down her station. Noah spreads his fingers out on the bar. He likes the feel. The cool stone and its tiny imperfections comfort him. Finding some calm in the storm as the memory of that night plays in his mind. A smile spreads while recalling a lot of the nights since.
During the ride home, Noah feels all the tension he’s stored in his broad shoulders. During a dinner rush his muscles always tighten. They crank up as the hours pass. Shoulders become earrings. His shoulders are the keepers of all his bullshit. Refusing to play along with his cover-up.
Kate reaches over, digging a thumb into the area that needs her work the most. She worries that he hides it all. His grinding thoughts. His concerns. Not wanting to talk about it. At least not in any serious way.
A tough nut to crack, they’ve said about him.
But on their first real date they’d stayed up all night talking, laughing. A date so rare she hadn’t wanted it to end. He took her to a cheap, greasy, awesome hamburger paradise near campus. A place that used candles and cheap red tablecloths as mechanisms for charm delivery. They snuck in some wine, pouring it in the joint’s somewhat clean soft drink cups.
She asked about his family.
“They practiced aggressive neglect,” he said with that wonderful smile of his.
She asked about his experience in the military, wondering if it was that different from hers.
“Was told they’d make a man out of me.”
“How’s that working out?”
“Not well.”
She laughed, taking a sip of her horrific wine. “You know what? You’re like a playground wrapped in barbed wire.”
Noah couldn’t argue. Guilty on all counts. But, after that night, Noah did let Kate in.
Forever and always.
Kate turns up the radio as they continue the long commute home after work. It’s one of the few stations left in the world. Mostly talking head paranoid political bullshit, but at night it still plays classic hits from the early 2000s, with some foot-stompers from the ’80s and ’90s sprinkled in. They share the belief that music after 2025 is nothing short of shit. Music snobbery is the best.
Noah grips the wheel as Kate hits that spot in his back.
She’ll work on it m
ore later, but this will get them home.
They talk all the time about getting one of those fancy driverless SUVs. Noah ignores the fact those are the reason he lost one of his jobs. Still, they are nice. The self-driving ones all the soccer moms so casually yammer on and on about at the restaurant during lunch shifts. It’s the fantasies that keep you going sometimes. He hates that they have to drive back and forth in this beaten-down car. The upkeep has been tough on their income. The two new tires a month ago almost crushed them. Transmission last year did crush them—still paying that off at almost forty percent interest.
“Stop,” she tells him.
“What?”
“Tap pause on your churning brain.”
“Love to.” Gives her a half-smile. “Can’t help it.”
“We’ll get there.”
He nods. They’re doing the best they can. The bills are no joke. The debt from when the girls were born is crushing. The problems with the house are mountains he can’t climb. The hole in the roof. The ancient water heater. The air conditioner that went shithouse last summer. The neighborhood. Gunshots from the disenchanted rednecks. Homeless wandering during the day. All those, and the potential problems they don’t even know about yet spin in an endless loop.
“Not sure about that.” Noah’s voice fades. “We should be further along in life. The girls—”
“Come on, baby.”
He stops, then starts again. Rarely does he come out and say it. “I want them to have more, that’s all.” His words are low and steady. “Want them to have it better.”
Noah and Kate both dropped out of college when the girls were born. They’ll go back and finish—they know they will—but they want the kids to get a little older. They dream of putting some money together. Paying some things off. She has less to go with her BA in Finance, so she will go back first.
“Hey.” She turns his chin toward her. Eyes warm. Heart open. “We will get there. Our way. Nobody can stop us. Got it?”
She pushes his chin back to the road. He nods with zero conviction.
“Okay?” Kate presses.
“Yes.” Noah smirks. “One fine day, we will be super okay.”
Kate shakes her head. “Here’s an idea.” She turns down the radio then whispers into his ear. “After the sitter leaves—”
“Can’t afford the sitter either.”
“After the sitter leaves,” she says, booming the word after, “how about we play a little?”
He grins wide. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She plays with the back of his neck. “You dig the MILFs, right?”
They giggle like horny teenagers.
“My new favorite.” Noah kisses her hand.
Kate smiles big. Looking out the window, she watches the country farmland blur by as they put some distance between them and the city, hurtling toward the outer edges. This time of night, the highway is eerily empty. Maybe the occasional trucker, but more times than not it’s an open road under the glow of the moon. The sky is big and open, dark and deep. Stars litter the evening canvas holding strong against the relentless night.
From the corner of her eye, something catches Kate’s attention.
Something odd.
There’s a strange pulse of a glow floating above and to the right of their car.
A perfect small hole of white light cutting into the night. More perfect than a star. Not massive, only the size of a baseball, but it’s holding steading while speeding along with their car. She missed it before, lost among the stars.
The white glow lowers, now hovering parallel with her window. Eye level with Kate, though a few car lengths away. Still keeping pace with them. She looks over at the speedometer; they’re going a little over eighty.
Kate squints, processing.
Too close to the ground for a plane. Too nimble for anything like that. Maybe a drone.
Why would a drone be out here?
Also, the light looks like part of a vague shadow of an outline. Something bigger than any drone she’s ever seen. The moonlight allows a faint view of the edges. They seem smooth in spots then jagged in others.
Kate’s mouth opens slightly, lips parted, but no words escape. Kate always considers everything before speaking. She stops playing with the back of Noah’s neck.
Outside the window, the glow grows brighter and brighter. The color changes. Shifts to a bloodred portal of light. Searing. Hurts to look at in the night. Then, the bloodred light goes dark as quickly as it burned bright.
She turns off the radio.
“What?” Noah asks. “What’s up?”
Kate turns, locking eyes with her husband.
“I don’t know.”
A machinelike whirl vibrates the entire car.
A whispered zip shreds the peace. Something slams into the passenger side. A bone-rattling jolt as if the car collided with a two hundred mile an hour gust. Seatbelts catch hard, snapping them back into their seats.
The steering wheel rips, spinning free from Noah’s grasp.
Another whispered zip.
The car goes airborne.
Turning. Rolling. Each flip gaining momentum. Steel caves in. Bending. Crunching. Tiny shards of glass fly past their faces as the windows blow out. Their heads whip back and forth. Eerie moments of silence fill in the gaps as the car finds the peace of air, only to be brought back to the horror of metal connecting with concrete. A nightmare out of control. The twisted car rips up the earth as it tears into an open field off the side of the highway.
Kate’s seatbelt unlatches.
Her body is thrown free from the car.
Noah’s fingers helplessly reach out for her. His seatbelt comes undone. He’s tossed around the inside of the car like dice. Shattering bones crack inside of him as his body beats against the interior of the car.
The car skids along the grass on its roof, cutting up the ground before slowing to a stop. Tires spin wildly then slow into a loose wobble. Fluids pour from the hood forming puddles on the ground. Steam plumes. Stink of burnt rubber and gas. A violent silence now fills the cool night air.
Kate’s still body lies broken in the wet grass.
Noah fights to breathe as his blood spills.
Looking down, he sees a severed scrap of steel jammed into his stomach. A piercing pain he didn’t know was possible. His thoughts fight the fog. His thoughts are of the girls. Their twin girls. The day they were born. Playing on the living room floor. How sweet they smelled from their bath. How soft they were as he kissed them goodbye before leaving to go to work. Fragments of memories scream through his dying mind. Halting on a single memory of Kate. A replay of their last drink together.
A silver car stops on the highway. Electric. Driverless.
Noah’s grip on consciousness is slipping. Through tunneled vision he sees a tall man step out from the car. Noah can’t manage a single word. Begs his body to move, but it cannot. A useless soul in a broken shell.
Noah’s eyes shut.
Chapter 2
His eyes struggle to open.
Lids flutter like butterfly wings.
They slow to a blink, still working to find moisture. As his sight comes back online, confusion takes over. He’s in a room, a room he does not recognize. The walls. The smell. The feel. Nothing’s familiar.
No idea where he is.
No memory of how he got here.
Heart pounding. Gut-twisting rips of fear. He’s covered with a thin coat of sweat. There’s a burning radiating up from his forearm. Rubbing it only makes it worse.
His eyes dart while trying to control his bouncing thoughts.
This room is a top five shithole. Windows are blacked out with dirt and grime, partially covered with thin rags posing as curtains. He’s in a bed. The sheets have some kind of film to them that sticks and peels away from his bare skin. Swallowing back the sickness, he tries not to think about what that kind of film might be. Throwing back the sheets, he jumps up from the bed.
Too fast.
His head spins into a tornado hell. Ears ring. His grinding stomach is now full-on nausea. There’s some kind of tasteless coating running along his tongue and on his teeth. He’s dressed in only a pair of plain white boxers.
Room feels hot and cold at the same time.
Looking around, he sees dark, rich stains dug deep into the carpet. Fairly sure those have nothing to do with him. The room feels more like the set of a bad play than an actual structure. Ancient wallpaper filled with large piss-yellow flowers that have faded almost to the point of nonexistence peels away from the walls. Steady streams of muffled profanity sound from the next room.
A dog barks its nuts off nearby.
His knees wobble underneath him as he struggles to find his bearings. He plants his hand down hard on the bedside table looking for stability. The spinning, the pain, it’s starting to slow but still present. The burning from his forearm starts up again, evolving into a throbbing itch of healing.
Looking down, he sees there’s a fresh tattoo on his forearm.
It’s a classic devil face design about three inches in diameter. The devil has a black mohawk with a cigar jammed in its toothy grin. Its reddish edges are raised, and the whole thing is covered in a clear coating. Running from the devil’s face are purplish vein-like streaks. Carefully, he touches it with his fingertip.
“The hell?” He grinds his teeth. The pain nearly made him jump out of his skin.
There’s something stranger than the tattoo. Something more troubling.