by G. K. Lund
Unfortunately, I wasn’t quick enough. Despite my soft footfalls and the illusion surrounding me, the long-haired man could still move too fast for me to react. I came upon the square itself, still messy, broken and empty. Façades had been damaged and brick had fallen down. Windows were barred with plywood and there was some garbage floating.
But no long-haired man.
Much like he had earlier, I remained standing a moment, looking back and forth to see if I could get even a hint of where he’d gone. There wasn’t a sound. Only a siren far away on the other side of the city, and the soaring undertone of the river right behind the buildings across the square.
Chapter 21
Peter stifled a yawn as he approached Ben’s door, then wondered why as he went with it, eyes squinted shut as the sensation overtook him. He was so tired, but Ben wasn’t answering his phone, and Peter hadn’t been able to find him anywhere at the library. In addition to needing sleep, he was also tired of pushing through the crowd of people to see if he could spot his friend by chance. With slow movements, he found the right key and put it in the lock as he hoped there was some heat on in there. He was cold as well, not used to being awake in the middle of the night.
Before he could turn the key, the door opened to reveal the tall frame of Walter. “Well,” he said in that level-headed voice of his, “at least one of you is alive.”
“Give me a break.” Peter straightened up and walked inside effectively getting Walter to take a step back. He was not surprised to see him. They all had keys to Ben’s apartment. They had needed them after his accident, and then kept them.
“We never saw you again,” Rose pointed out. She sat in one of the soft chairs next to the couch.
“Oh.” Peter stopped and looked at both of them. He had completely forgotten they all came together to the library. He had gotten separated from them the moment he saw Evy on the run in the crowd. “Sorry about that.”
“We tried texting you,” Rose said.
“Oh.”
“Never mind that,” Walter said as he walked over and sat down in the other chair. He did stifle a yawn, holding his hand in front of his mouth as well, which in turn made Peter yawn again. All he wanted was to go home and get some sleep. “Did you see Ben?” Walter said when he could talk.
Peter shook his head in answer to that. “That’s why I’m here. I wanted to know… how it went.” Not with the supposed job obviously, but what had happened with Winter. Those two had met, that much was clear, but Winter hadn’t said anything, and Peter hadn’t dared to ask. The fact that Peter had told Winter off about his treatment of Evy made him a little shaky even now.
Walter gave him a look that indicated he didn’t quite see how that was necessary. Wouldn’t it be enough to send a text in the morning? That kind of look seemed a good thing for a lawyer, not so much for his friends. “Listen,” he said. “We’re just worried. Ben’s obviously still dealing with the trauma, but what is he really up to?”
“You’ve been spending the most time with him,” Rose chimed in. “What’s going on? He’s always running around looking for this person, or persons, that’s supposed to know something about his… accident. He’s getting thinner, cares little for things that interested him before. If you exclude tonight, he’s done nothing regarding his work.”
“He has savings doesn’t he?” Peter tried. “Maybe he needs a break?”
“That’s fine,” Rose nodded along with this. “But those savings will not last forever. And anyway, if this obsession of tracking down people who might know something doesn’t lead anywhere… well, I’m worried.”
“Okay? So what do you want me to do about it?”
They glanced at each other at that, in that almost thought-reading way long-time couples do. They had been discussing this repeatedly between them. They had been together a few years now. Out of all Rose’s boyfriends, Walter was the one Peter genuinely liked. He was happy they had found each other, even if it had been a little awkward in the beginning. They had all been friends before that. But maybe that was why Peter liked his sister’s now-fiancé. He knew Walter and what kind of guy he was. Decent, upstanding, loyal and kind. Like Rose. They were a good match in that regard, so of course, they both worried about their friend when his life, and in a way theirs, had been turned upside down by an unforeseen accident.
“We know you have been trying to help Ben,” Rose said as their silent communication came to an end.
“And we are grateful that you’re doing it,” Walter continued.
Peter had to force himself not to roll his eyes at the “we”. He might like them being together but did they have to be a single entity?
“The thing is…” Rose bit her lip a moment as she weighed her words. She didn’t want to start an argument. “Are you helping him? Or enabling him?”
Peter didn’t know what to say. Enabling Ben? “Does that mean…” he paused, not sure if he understood them right before pressing on, “that you think he should give up trying to remember? His life? Us?”
Rose shook her head before he was done speaking. “No. absolutely not. God, you have no idea how much I want him to remember, but I don’t think trying to force it is any help.”
“Besides…” Walter said. “You’re putting your own life on hold in the process.”
Peter shook his head in silent protest. Wasn’t Ben part of that life? He had been like a brother to Peter and Rose since they were kids. “Family looks out for each other.”
“Yes, I know that,” Rose agreed, “but that doesn’t mean you have to give up the important things.” She shared a glance with her fiancé again.
“What was that?” Peter demanded. There was something they were not telling him.
“We met George at the library,” Rose explained and then said no more.
“Oh shit.” Peter fished his phone out of a pocket and checked it. A message from George awaited him. A short text asking if he wanted to meet somewhere as she couldn’t find him in the crowd. “Damn it,” he added for good measure but didn’t feel better. He had been distracted, and for a good reason too. George wouldn’t know that. She wouldn’t understand that some people with weird abilities had abducted a woman he had first met when Ben saved her from one of the explosions in Cury Square. That the attack he’d experienced there wasn’t even the most unexplained thing he’d seen in the last few days. White eyes; black smoke. Peter shook his head, forcing those thoughts away. And Evy being abducted by someone good enough to sneak weapons past security checkpoints. By someone who had likely killed their predecessors. No wonder Peter kept missing her at every turn.
Were Rose and Walter right? They weren’t completely wrong at least. But he couldn’t tell them, could he? They would not believe. He hardly did himself. Didn’t even know what to tell as he understood nothing about it. So he promised them that he was going to fix this before it became too late. It wasn’t like he was going to abandon Ben. Peter couldn’t in good conscience do that. Not when he had seen what had happened to Evy, who was unquestionably linked to Ben and his new circumstances. But he had done what he could for her now. However little that might be. So as Rose and Walter got into a taxi, and Peter waited for his own to arrive, he sent George a text apologizing for not seeing hers earlier, and asking if she wanted to meet the next day. No matter what, if she wanted to, then he was going to keep to that meeting.
Chapter 22
At around six a.m. I decided to head back to Old Ben’s apartment. I had spent the better part of the night searching for the long-haired man, and then when I gave up, I had kept going, practicing my new little trick. It turned out, as daylight broke, that even though it worked then as well, it was a much more useful skill when the light around me wasn’t bright. Not that people paid me much heed, but there were a few eyes who noticed why they were stepping aside. A few were startled or confused to suddenly be aware of a person that hadn’t been there a second ago. That was good to know.
The body did, however, no
t want to practice anymore. Fatigue hit me, and I could tell sleep was the only thing that would remedy this. Despite that, I still went into the coffee shop down the street from Old Ben’s apartment to get a warm cup of coffee. I was cold from being outside all night, and in truth, I still didn’t like sleeping. The drift off into a black nothingness always made me uneasy. I didn’t dream much, which might have made the experience better, but the few fragments that came during a night always vanished before I could remember if I truly had dreamed them.
The barista was well used to me by now, so her quick nod before turning to get my unspoken order as I entered was not unusual. Her lack of a smile was. I noticed about ten other customers in there beside me. That was not unusual either as many were on their way to work, but no one had much attention to spare either a newcomer or their coffees.
Everyone was looking at the flat-screen TV that hung high on the wall behind and to the side of the counter. The barista handed me my coffee, and simply put the money I gave her next to the register. No attention to spare for that as she looked up at the screen as well.
A serious looking news anchor kept talking nonstop as white letters raced across the thick orange crawl on the bottom of the screen. Grenade-man arrested. One man has been arrested by the Ashdale police in connection with the Cury Square explosions.
I took the lid off the coffee cup and absentmindedly blew on the dark liquid, the familiar aroma wafting up to the nose, making me sigh in relief. Instead of leaving with my order, I took a seat by a table, and, like the others, watched the screen with interest as the news anchor was replaced by a reporter outside the Harrow Police Station.
“It was in the early hours this morning—”
“It’s still the early hours,” one coffee drinker interrupted before laughing at his own comment. No one else cared.
“—at an address in South Harrow. At first, they didn’t inform us where, but neighbors filmed the entire thing.”
Sure enough, the footage of police entering an apartment in some building kept running on a loop in the bottom-right corner of the screen as the reporter kept talking.
“From what we understand the suspect is known to the police and he’s an elderly man. This indicates that we may be dealing with the same Grenade-man as the city did thirty years ago.”
“Have the police made any statements as of yet?” the news anchor asked.
“We are currently waiting to hear from them. We’ve been told there will be a press conference at ten p.m. Hopefully, we will know more by then.”
The reporter signed off and the news anchor came back into view. The footage of police entering an unknown apartment still kept rolling in its own little frame.
“For anyone just tuning in, we have learned that the police have made an arrest in connection with the Cury Square explosions. From what we know so far, there are indications it might be the same person that carried out these types of attacks over a quarter of a century ago. Cury Square was his most damaging attack with fifteen dead and forty-two wounded. As the city came together last night to contribute in helping the survivors and those that struggle to keep their livelihoods, it seems that at the same time the police were busy narrowing in on the one responsible for all the murders and physical harm.”
I sipped the scalding hot coffee as I watched this. People came in to get coffee and pastry and stayed for the news. Those who had to leave, all took their phones out and put earplugs in to keep listening. While reporters were busy scrambling to get anything new to report, old clips and interviews with various experts were shown. It was all interrupted the moment something more recent could be reported. The mayor entering City Hall for an example. The man barely got out of his car before he was bombarded with microphones and cameras. Everyone wanted to be the first to report something new. The mayor looked tired, but alert while giving his brief comments. He had looked better the night before, but then he had been busy with the charity for most of the night. Now, something more pressing was happening. I wondered a little at why I kept seated to watch. The whole event at Cury Square had been a violent ordeal, but what I had seen when passed out had affected me more. The appearance of Evy and her attempt at using her talent against me had also taken most of my attention. Of course, avoiding death and injury had been on my mind, but it hadn’t bothered me much afterward. Not like Peter. I knew he kept churning it over in his head. It had been traumatic, no doubt, but I was not reacting to it the same way others did. Yet here I sat among others and wondered who was responsible for it all. The caffeine did its little trick as well, and I ended up buying another one with a ham and cheese croissant.
“Nell Sterling, welcome.” The news anchor told a young woman with soft red hair as they sat opposite each other in elegant steel chairs that reflected the light in the studio. “In your novel Think of Me to Keep the Memories, the Grenade-man of the eighties is part of the narrative. What did you come to find when researching your story?”
“Well, Robert. It’s a work of fiction of course, but part of the story takes place in Ashdale during the time these attacks happened the first time.” The woman sat in a relaxed position, legs crossed, hands lightly folded in her lap. “I actually came over the story by accident. It was reported in the media of course, for long periods of time even, but then when the attempts at blowing people up stopped, so did the interest it seems. Like the city wanted to forget.”
“Yes, because you were born three years after these events?”
“I was. And I never heard about it growing up. It was my research for the story that made me familiar with it. People have asked me after reading the book if I made that up. They think it’s strange that they haven’t heard of it themselves. And I have to tell them that, no, it really did happen. Ask your parents.”
“So it’s a whole generation that has forgotten or has no interest in it?”
“I wouldn’t say no interest. How can you show interest and outrage if you don’t know in the first place?”
“Why do you think it was, in a sense, forgotten?”
“Well, I suspect it’s because no one was killed. The fear that flowed through the city was palpable. I interviewed people who remembered it, and they said no one dared walk anywhere without staring at the ground in case there would be a tripwire. But then it stopped, and it’s like the city wanted to forget the bad things.”
“Ben,” a familiar voice interrupted. I looked up to see Bullfinch Sophie, looking more like the bird as she was sporting a long black coat over her red tunic and wide pants. “You’ve seen then?” she asked and indicated the screen. She was standing there with a paper cup in her hand. I had been so absorbed in the news that I hadn’t noticed her come in, and with Sophie that was hard to do.
“Yeah,” I confirmed and pointed to one of the unoccupied chairs by my table.
“Good news, but such a shame,” Sophie said. “I knew you were in trouble that day, you know. I felt something bad near your energy, but didn’t understand until after.”
Retrospect, I thought, every psychic’s friend. Still, she had helped me once in getting a semblance of a true memory back, so I didn’t disregard her self-declared ability altogether.
The interview with the author went on for a few more minutes before they had any more news. Someone in the police department had talked to a reporter long before the press conference. Knowing the address that had been raided helped as well, I figured, as they showed a photo of a man in his fifties or sixties. Short gray hair, a little thinner on top, but not much. He was smiling with a cocktail in his hand, in a garden somewhere. A couple of people were in the same photo, but their faces were obscured.
A man named Gil Barber. Such a nondescript and normal name. He had recently retired as a crime scene investigator. Had worked with the police for years it seemed. He was described by neighbors as an upstanding guy. Smiling and helpful. Of course, there were the interviewees who always thought he was a little funny. I guess hindsight makes anyone smart enough to see such
things. The man looked ordinary. Why had he done this? Why had he waited thirty years between? People had been hurt. Some were dead and would never be among the other people of this place again. Torn from their families. And Peter had been close to that happening to him as well. Somehow that didn’t sit quite right with me. I thought about it happening to Rose, Walter or Olivia as well. And no, that would not be good. I was used to them. Found them worth paying attention to. Didn’t wish for them to go away when they were around. It was not simply that I needed them anymore. I liked them. Yet I still wanted to leave them. But that was different, wasn’t it? Yes, it was. I didn’t want bad things happening to them. After the attack, Peter had become uneasy and didn’t quite know how to deal. I had seen the deaths, felt them even. Seen the injuries and pain. Bodies flying, body parts as well… and that did strike me as wrong despite the inevitability I felt from sensing it beforehand. It could have been someone I knew. Even if it wasn’t that didn’t mean the poor victims deserved it. “Oh crap,” I whispered into the croissant. I was truly starting to care, wasn’t I? That could complicate things.
Sophie and I decided to go back to the apartment building. Sophie had customers and I could continue watching there. Likely it would take all day for all the information to get out anyway. On reflex, I took the phone out of the jacket pocket to check the time and noticed missed calls and texts in the little menu on top of the screen. There were so many notifications up there. Old Ben had all kinds of social media accounts and by now several hundred different reminders that things were happening on them. I had learned to ignore them and pay attention to what mattered and therefore went straight to the thread of texts from Peter. There were several asking where I was. They had been sent during the charity event and increased to where the fuck I was. I had completely forgotten. I had been so angry at the botched attempt at getting Winter to talk to me, and then the whole being followed through the empty streets of the city, that I forgot he might want to know how it went. But that was not how the messages ended. No, it was bad. I stopped walking as I looked down at the screen seeing words that filled me with worry and guilt. It had to be guilt because I immediately wondered if I could have done something as I stared in disbelief at the letters; Ben. Answer me. Those guys who followed her took Evy.