“Yes,” Sticks said quietly, “it really does.”
“He left next day, and even though he wrote all the time and emailed and called when he could, I never saw him again. He went from basic to some kind of special training thing, and then his unit was shipped to Iraq. It happened all so fast. Months, I know, but it felt like seconds. It all blew by. He went to Iraq and then he … his Humvee…”
She shook her head. It took her a long time before she could even try to talk. Sticks waited patiently, his eyes calm, his burned hands loose around his coffee cup. The waitress refilled the cups.
Rain told Sticks about discovering she was pregnant, about finding out Noah had been killed, about giving up the baby. She told him all of it. About getting lost in drugs, about going in and out of rehab. About getting clean and working the program.
“How’s this get us to Boundary Street?” he asked.
“It’s part of it,” said Rain. “At least I think so. While I was getting high, I began to have visions. They were as vivid as dreams, but I’d get them sometimes while I was awake. Strange people and places. Not all bad, but the bad ones were really bad. I … can’t tell you all of it, though, and don’t ask me to. I can’t, and you have to accept that, okay?”
Sticks said, “Okay, but if you ever decide you want to tell me all of it…”
“Sure. Not now, though,” said Rain. “Here’s what I can tell you, though.”
She told him about meeting the little monk in the park, about the horrors of her birth, about dying during the birth and following the bright light back to life, about dying again during an NA meeting. She told him about the nurse. Some instinct told her that she could mention the nurse, that it was allowed, where naming Doctor Nine was not. She told Sticks about seeing the boy on the train and on the street. She told him about the old lady and the glasses. She told him everything she could without ever mentioning Doctor Nine’s name.
“Now,” she said after a heavy pause, “the problem is that I don’t know how much of this is some kind of flashback, actual psychosis, or whether the universe is broken.”
Sticks wiped his mouth. “Holy shit, girl.”
“I know.”
“I mean, holy shit.”
“I know. So … am I crazy?”
He shook his head. “You have those glasses with you? Can I see them?”
“No, after my friends tried them on last night, I decided to leave them at my place. They creep me out.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Look, this kid, is he real or not? What’s your gut say?”
It took so much for her to answer that. She couldn’t even look at him when she answered. “Yes,” she said in a hollow little voice.
“Then what’s it mean? The glasses, the freaky-deaky nurse, you losing a whole damn day? What do you think it all means?”
Her fists were balled on the tabletop. “I think it means that those glasses are showing me the truth. I think it means that my son is out there, that I’ve been seeing him. And I think—God help me—I think he’s in real trouble.”
Sticks leaned forward. “What kind of trouble?”
She slowly raised her eyes. “I think monsters are after him,” she said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Straight Bob got up from the computer and staggered toward the bathroom. He was sobbing, making small mewling sounds, spilling out words that made no sense. Denials, accusations, outrage, apologies. All to himself.
He was naked, and his thighs and belly were pasted with semen and drops of blood. His forearm muscles ached, and his penis blazed with friction burns. He had no real idea how many times he’d jerked off during the night. Five? Eight? More? Even after his body was completely spent, he kept working at himself to get hard again, his right hand moving relentlessly, his left squirting Jergen’s hand cream all over his crotch to lubricate things, though after a while it did nothing but create a layer of paste.
His heart hammered from the exertion, from the stress. From passion.
On his laptop, the images still played, rolling from one video to the next to the next to the next.
A nurse seducing a patient.
A nurse swallowing the enormous cock of a hunky doctor.
Two nurses driving each other wild with a strap-on.
A nurse giving a priest a hand job while he read last rites over a dying woman.
A nurse …
A nurse …
A nurse.
Always a nurse.
All night, a nurse.
Straight Bob could not stop himself from downloading the videos to his hard drive, creating playlists, running them, making himself hard, forcing himself to come, screaming each time. Sure that the nurses were performing—not for him, but on him.
The nurse.
They all looked the same. Even though there were different porn actresses in each video, they all looked the same. A nurse with dark curly hair and cat-green eyes and a wicked red-lipped smile.
He leaned against the sink, cold porcelain against his thighs, and stared at his face in the mirror. Not understanding. Hating himself. Feeling as if the world was falling off its fasteners, tilting, sliding down the wall to crash to bits.
“Please,” he begged his own image.
In the other room, a new video started.
A visiting nurse paying a house call.
“No,” he begged.
A minute later, he was back in his chair in front of the laptop. Weeping, pleading. His hand moving and moving and moving while the nurse did what she did and smiled directly into the camera. Looking at him.
Seeing him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The Cadillac pulled to a slow stop across the street from American Dollar.
The engine growled like a hungry dog. Rain fell, but it fell through the car and spattered on the street below, the angle of descent only slightly troubled by the passage. No one on the street glanced at the car, though one old woman, newly come from church, touched the crucifix that hung on a chain beneath her blouse.
The driver let his hands fall onto his lap, and he sat there as still and unmoving as a clothing store mannequin. Except for his eyes. They were milky and dusty, and they roved up and down the street. Up and down, up and down.
Behind him sat three figures. The doctor. The nurse. The boy.
One was smiling. One was laughing. One was weeping.
On the radio, an orchestra was playing Totentanz, a lugubrious piece by Franz Liszt. On the floor of the car, between the doctor’s polished shoes, were pieces from a broken clock.
He looked at the boy, who was there, and then not there, and then there again.
So very like Doctor Nine.
“Soon,” said the doctor.
The boy caved forward and put his face in his scarred and dirty hands.
PART TWO
THE FIRE ZONE
Real magic is not about gaining power over others:
it is about gaining power over yourself.
THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MAGIC AND ALCHEMY
ROSEMARY ELLEN GUILEY
I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon
In the round-tower of my heart.
And there will I keep you forever,
Yes, forever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away!
“THE CHILDREN’S HOUR”
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
INTERLUDE FIVE
THE MONSTERS AND THE INFANT
They sat together in the dark.
The baby. The doctor. The nurse. And near them a chorus of watchful shadows.
Not a total darkness because even the monster needed some light. To see by. To covet by.
The baby was still tiny. A newborn. Unable to speak. Pink and round and tender. His fat little feet pedaled the air above where he lay, as if practicing for running away. The monster knew he woul
d try that one day. Run away.
They always tried to run away.
The light showed that, too.
The nurse rocked the cradle and hummed a tune that had no structure, no order. Her eyes were filled with ugly thoughts, and she kept licking her lips as if hoping to find a trace of something. Juice, perhaps. Or sweat.
The monster sat beside the cradle and watched the little fingers paw and slap and grab at the things that hung from above. The stubby little fingers could almost reach the hairy white sac of spider eggs that wobbled near one torn edge of the web. The mother spider watched the boy, as the monster watched the boy, and their hungers were not dissimilar.
In the dark, the baby screamed.
In the dark, the nurse rocked and sang.
In the dark, the monster smiled.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Yo-Yo woke from a short, bad nap. Her stomach hurt. Something she ate, maybe. Or some bacteria cooking up something nasty in her system. Whatever it was, it hurt.
She showered and dressed and went to the first meeting she could find. It was all the way down at a place next to the Dunkin’ Donuts on Neptune in Coney Island, a few blocks from Seagate, and most of the people there were strangers. She sat and listened and did not speak. She didn’t dare.
While she sat there listening, she played with the small windup pocket watch some prankster had slipped into her mailbox. It didn’t work, and she had no way to wind it, but it was pretty and she rubbed its glass face with her thumb, using it like a worry stone.
When it was over, she left without having coffee or cookies. There was another meeting near there, on the other side of MCU Park, where the Cyclones played minor-league ball. Again, she sat and listened, needing the company of others of her kind but not wanting to share with them.
There was a third meeting all the way over at a Methodist church near Bergen Beach. And another one in Briarwood. Then one in Corona. There was always a meeting somewhere.
Yo-Yo moved like a desperate nomad through Brooklyn, going to one meeting after another. In all that time, she never said a word to anyone except meaningless hellos and goodbyes. All that time, her heart felt like it was breaking inside her chest.
Why did I write his name down?
That question burned in her mind. She’d written his name in her poem, and Yo-Yo knew with absolute certainty that he did not like it.
No, not at all.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Their coffee went cold in their cups. Rain and Sticks stared at each other and didn’t notice. They’d been there a long time, but no one else needed the booth; the place was mostly empty.
Bernadette came over with a pot, saw that the cups were still full, shrugged, and walked away without comment. The storm was still brewing outside, with winds whipping abandoned pieces of the Sunday paper along the street and chasing everyone indoors. A few raindrops splatted against the glass in brief squalls, but the big downpour was still to come. It had turned twilight dark out there.
“Monsters,” Sticks said at last.
“Monsters.”
“Are we talking monsters like … what? Child abusers? Human traffickers? Like that?”
“No. Actual monsters. Supernatural, I guess.”
“Like vampires and werewolves and demons and that shit?”
“Maybe,” said Rain, studying the new lines that were now etched onto his face. “I don’t know what other word to use.”
Sticks looked around the room as if answers were likely to be posted on the walls, then he glanced back at her and shook his head. “Got to admit that I don’t know where to go with that.”
“Like I do? I mean … Christ, we’re sitting here having a conversation about monsters and neither of us is joking. And it has to do with the baby I gave up for adoption ten years ago.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. Look, Sticks, I’ve always had weird stuff going on in my head. I’ve logged more hours in therapy than you’ve had hot dinners. Not kidding. But how do I find a set of rules for how to deal with all this? I don’t trust my own head, and I don’t know if anything’s real.”
“Except that you believe this is happening,” he suggested gently.
“Yeah, except for that.” She cocked her head. “Do you believe in the supernatural?”
Sticks used one unburned finger to slowly trace the edges of the burns on his other forearm. “You know that saying about there not being any atheists in foxholes? You dig what that actually means? It’s all about when you’re slammed up against the shit and you start wondering all about those Sunday school lessons on salvation and redemption. Don’t matter what church you ever been to, don’t really matter if you ever been to church, but when the air’s filled with live fire and RPGs are tearing your friends to dogmeat and you’re strapped to your chair in a burning vehicle, you’ll find God. By any name, you’ll find someone or something to pray to, and you’ll pray with your whole damn heart. I knew some guys who were always hard-core don’t-believe-in-no-damn-thing-and-religion’s-all-a-joke, except they were praying and crying while they lay there, out of fresh magazines, bleeding, the medic lying with his own guts out, and fucking Al Qaeda coming out of holes in the desert.”
“Is that faith or desperation?”
“Don’t make much of difference,” said Sticks. “I lost God growing up and found Him over there the first time I found myself in an active combat zone. Lost Him again when it cooled down, then really hooked on when I woke up in a mobile surgical station about to get evaced to a burn center. I prayed to Him so hard when I was waiting on news about the other guys in my Humvee, begging God to let them be alive. Kicked the son of a bitch to the curb when they told me I was the only one who didn’t go home in a flag-draped goddamn coffin. But then I had a shit ton of conversations with Him while I was waiting to find out if I’d ever walk again. I prayed, I offered deals. I told God I’d devote my life to trying to help the families of every man who died when I rolled over that mine. I would have done anything, taken back every bad thing I ever done to wiggle a toe; and I knew—knew—I was talking to someone and they were listening.”
Rain said nothing.
“Faith can be a bitch, though,” said Sticks. “Especially if you start to believe that maybe God isn’t the actual ‘all,’ you know? Like when you start believing that there is something out there in the dark and it wants to hurt you and God doesn’t have your back. First time I saw the bodies of innocent little kids killed by Al Qaeda, I kind of lost the whole ‘the Lord will protect you’ thing. So do I believe in God the same way my grammy does? Or how she used to before she lost her mind? Nah. All that church and gospel stuff never worked for me, but it don’t mean there ain’t something out there. Something bigger, stronger, whatever. Something that’s working the engine, something that’s driving all of this through time and space. So … yeah, Rain, I guess I believe in the supernatural. Just don’t ask me what it is.”
She nodded, accepting that. “Then there’s another part of it. Dreams I’ve been having about a place I go to, and … I think it’s somehow related to where you found me yesterday.”
His eyes changed, sharpened, and his muscles stiffened. “What place?”
“I … don’t know its name. I almost know it, but it keeps slipping away when I wake up. It’s real in my dreams and maybe, in some insane way, it’s real when I’m awake, too.”
Sticks licked his lips, and she saw that there was a faint but definite tremor to his hands. “Rain, this place … tell me one definite thing you can remember. Any detail.”
Rain tried, but every time she looked inside, the details seemed to vanish like debris in roiling dark water. All she could catch were the tiniest of glimpses. “Fire,” she said uncertainly. “There’s something about fire…”
Sticks sat back heavily against the seat and stared at her with wide, unblinking eyes. “Holy shit,” he murmured.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“Look,” he said slow
ly, “I don’t want to sound all creepy here, but I’ve being having dreams, too. Wild ones. They started when I was in the VA hospital.”
She tensed. “What kind of dreams?”
He licked lips again. “It’s about a place that’s up the hill from Boundary Street. Even though New York doesn’t have a lot of hills. I’m not even sure it’s in New York. It’s like this place is in every city, if that makes any sense at all.”
“It does,” she said in a whisper. “You’re saying you’ve dreamed about the same place?”
“I think so.”
“That’s impossible.”
He laughed. “How can we have a conversation about freakazoid glasses, vanishing old ladies, and a monster nurse and you think dreams are suddenly the weird part?”
“I know, but it’s just that this is all…” She gave up trying to find the right word because there probably wasn’t one. So she asked, “Do you know what the place is called?”
“I do,” he said. “At least I know what it’s called in my dreams. When I go there, it’s called the Fire Zone.”
Rain almost screamed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Gay Bob stood naked in the bathroom watching the toilet flush.
He lost count of how many times he’d flushed so far.
Once for each pill. It was like throwing roses on a coffin, and he mourned each and every pill as he dropped them one at a time into the bowl. He knew that he should have flushed them all at once, but he couldn’t.
He.
Could.
Not.
There was something about the ceremony of dropping each one, of denying each one, that kept him tethered to the world. He expected to feel more powerful each time he pushed the handle and saw the swirl of water take each tablet out of his life.
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