by P. N. Elrod
“Here now,” he said, starting to scribble a rough map. “You go up the lane behind the roadhouse . . . oh, damn. What a time to run dry.” He fiddled impatiently with the pen, making a face. I wondered for an instant if he was going to be stupid enough to try squirting ink in my eyes, but he made whatever adjustment he wanted and tried writing again. “I’m terribly sorry, but the blasted thing is—have either of you a pen or pencil?”
Doc snorted in disgust and leaned back against the door to pinch the bridge of his nose. “I really, and I mean really need a drink.”
Keeping my eyes on Maxwell, I reached into my inside coat pocket and found a pencil by touch, held it out to him over the seat.
“Thank you. I’m afraid all this activity has me a bit rattled. Usually I’m not like this.”
“Just write,” I said.
“Yes, yes, of course.” He nervously reached for the pencil, pen still in hand.
He should have put the pen away. The movement suddenly became too aggressive, too fast, and it was over and done before I even thought about reacting. He caught me right on the inside wrist with the pen, only instead of a stab with the blunt point of a nib, it was something sharp, stinging.
I snarled and yanked my arm back like I’d been burned, dragging the pen with me. It startled Doc, who looked up, eyes wide.
Maxwell hit the latch on the door and scrabbled clear of the car.
The pen stuck up at an incongruous angle from my wrist and hurt like blazes. I figured it for some kind of a retractable stiletto, as there was a long needle coming out of it that he’d buried in me. Nasty little weapon. I slapped it free like swatting an especially ugly bug, and madder than hell shot out of the car to chase Max down. He hadn’t gotten far, was probably still rocky from the punch I’d given him earlier. I caught up with him in ten steps, snagged his coat to haul him into range of my fist, and gave him another sock to remember me by. He dropped.
Leaned wearily against the side of a building, my head spinning. Jeez, what a night.
I checked back to see what Doc was doing. He’d levered from the car as well, but was coming toward us rather than attempting to escape. He probably knew better than to try in his shape, since I’d be able to catch him just as easily. He had the pen with him, but held it gingerly between his fingertips like it was some fragile piece of glass.
“Holy hell, you ever see anything like this in your life? Wonder where he got it?” he said, looking down at Maxwell. “What a little weasel. I think I owe him a kick for that crack about my not graduating.”
“Let him be, he’s not going anywhere. What is that thing?” I took the pen from him for a closer look. I didn’t care much for what I saw. The needle was hollow, a hypodermic. I examined my wrist. There was a hole in it and a little blood. Nothing to worry about, I hoped, except that there was now a knot under the skin, which felt very cold.
“Lemme see,” said Doc, squinting at the damage like a fortune-teller. He clamped his fingers above the knot with one hand, then gently squeezed it. I didn’t feel a thing. A very small amount of clear fluid came out the hole, then nothing as it swelled shut. He bent low and sniffed my skin. “Gimme that pen again.”
I held on to it, but let him check things. He worked some tiny mechanism in the fat barrel with his thumb and a drop of fluid appeared at the end of the needle. He sniffed that, too.
The cold was starting to travel up my arm, fast. “Something’s wrong. . . .”
He shot me a sad, worried look. “What d’you feel?”
“It’s gone all numb.” My arm was too heavy to move. It drooped from my shoulder, a deadweight.
“Sit down, son. Take it easy.”
“What the hell’d he stick me with? Morphine?” But it didn’t feel like morphine.
“Just sit down,” he insisted.
I didn’t want to, but my body gave me no choice. The cold blossomed out from my shoulder, spread over my chest, down my legs. They also went numb, and abruptly Doc was supporting me, easing me onto the hard pavement. I tried to take a breath to speak, but it felt like my lungs were stuffed with cotton.
“Easy, now,” he kept saying over and over. Whatever was wrong with me, it had to be bad to get that sort of reaction out of him. You’re only kind to your enemies when they’re dying.
“Doc?”
“It’s nothing I can do anything about,” he said, but he sounded like he was telling that to convince himself, not me.
“The pen—”
“It’s full of something nasty.”
No shit, I thought as the numbness swooped down my other arm. I was cold, very, very cold inside.
“Just take it easy . . . ”
“Wha—” I managed to gasp out with a last little bit of air. Kept staring at him, desperate for an answer.
“Got a smell to it. I think it’s some kind of cyanide. You know what that is?”
I knew. With the numbing cold came paralysis. My sight clouded over. Tried for more air. Nothing. Tried to move. Nothing.
Saw a shifting blur above as he felt for a pulse in my neck. Couldn’t find one, of course. “Oh, Lord, but I’m sorry for you, son. It’s hell, but there’s harder ways to go.”
True, but this one was bad enough.
Couldn’t move, couldn’t think. Could hear, but not react. It was like being caught away from my earth for the day. Part of my mind was conscious of activity around me, but utterly unable to do more than absently note it down. I should have been silently screaming in my brain from the panic, but I couldn’t remember how.
Another blur, then darkness. He’d shut my eyes with his fingers.
I heard other sounds from him. A long, sad sigh, a soft grunt as he stood up, a curse or two, his shoe soles scraping as he slowly walked away. Farther off, the clunk as he shut the Caddie’s door, the motor turning over and catching. A stuttering grind as he struggled with unfamiliar gears and fed it gas. The tires whined against the road as he turned them, then the wind and exhaust from the swiftly passing car washed over my cooling body.
9
I didn’t drift in a hazy mental fog as when I’d accidentally taken in a dose of morphine. That might have been pleasant. For this I was absolutely ironed flat to the ground, each of my bones weighing tons, the skin and muscle hanging from them dragging even heavier. Movement was impossible, as was thinking. The inertia enveloping me was complete and perfect.
If I could have thought about anything, I might have wished for total unconsciousness. Better not to have this sort of blind helplessness than be even a little aware of it and its attendant terror. But I did have that much left to me, more’s the pity, the first feeling to come when we’re born and the last to linger when we die, if we’re given enough time in the dying to recognize it.
And with the terror was the stunning cold. I was only sensible of it because of a contrasting band of warmth stubbornly clinging to my midsection. It wouldn’t go away. If that was bad or good I couldn’t work it out. Couldn’t even shiver.
Wind against my face, ruffling my hair, plucking at my clothes. It felt warm, too, compared to the iciness within my stilled flesh.
Hard pavement. Strange that it didn’t crumble and collapse under my body’s infinite weight.
Sound. Wind curled around my ears, whispering. Hollow clank and rattle as it pushed a tin can along the street. Mournful song as it slipped between the phone wires high above, making them hum in turn.
All this went on and on. No way to tell the time. No real time to tell. No real time. Nothing and everything at once and forever. The fear and the cold and the wind, no beginning, no ending.
And that one little spot of warmth.
A car came along and screeched to a stop. Voices. Questions. A hand on my brow. A hand lightly slapping my face.
“Jack? Wake up. Jack?”
“Damn it, Charles, you can’t leave this kid alone for five minutes. And who the hell is this mug?”
“Probably that Maxwell person Jack mentioned. How
is he?”
“Out for the count. What about—”
“He’s out, too. We can presume some misadventure overtook them both after Jack called in. Perhaps Doc got the drop on them, then escaped. I don’t see the car anywhere.”
“Presume fast then, we gotta get these guys off the sidewalk before someone else comes by.”
“Or Doc returns with help. Come on, then.”
“No you don’t. You’re not doing anything with your ribs the way they are. You just hold the door open, I can get ’em in.”
So saying, someone hauled me roughly up. He must have been amazingly strong to be able to handle my leaden form. I was lifted and lugged and eased down and pushed into place. Sitting at first, then I heeled right over. Leather upholstery. Softer than the pavement.
Sound of another man being lifted and the car rocked on its springs a little once he was inside. More rocking as they got in, two breathing men on either side of me. They pulled and pushed me upright, but my body kept wanting to slide sideways and down. Doors slammed shut.
“What’s that?” the second man, the amazing weight lifter, asked.
“Found it on the walk. It slipped from Jack’s hand. I think it’s supposed to be a pen, but—careful!—that’s a needle, and there’s some kind of fluid in it.”
“Does he take dope?”
“Certainly not, but this may be part of the misadventure that befell him. Get us home, Shoe. I’ve a very bad feeling about this.”
Starter, gears, forward motion. Two breathing men on either side of me, a shard of dim consciousness trapped alone and silent in a dead body.
“IT can’t be safe coming back to this place,” said the one called Shoe. “They been here twice now.”
“I rather think it will be, since they failed twice,” said his friend, Charles. “At least for the moment. Jack did get Miss Paco to call off the hit on me.”
“As far as he knows. The shape he’s in, anything could have happened since then and she could be behind it. He’s an honest kid dealing with a bunch of pirates. You can’t play fair with them and win.”
“Even so, he needs to be home for me to be able to help him.”
“What’s here that we can’t get at my sister’s place?”
“Just some odds and ends that she won’t have. Don’t worry about it.”
“I’ll worry if I damn well please. Now go hold the doors.”
More lifting, more carrying. Lots of carrying. Another soft place for my body to rest. A pink brightness against my eyelids as a light clicked on.
“Charles—Charles, hurry in here, he’s bleeding.”
“Where?” Footsteps, coming close, pausing. “Dear God.”
“I don’t see any cuts, but look at it! It’s all over him.” Fear in the voice.
Fingers brushed across my forehead. “This is very interesting. It seems to be coming right out of his pores.”
“What’s the matter with him?”
“I’m not sure, but that bizarre hypodermic . . . perhaps he was poisoned.”
“What the hell kinda poison does that to a man?”
“I’ll work on it later. Can you carry him up to the bath?”
“Bath, nothing. He’s going to a hospital.”
“Shoe, we cannot take him there.”
“Yeah, I heard that speech last night, but—”
“This has nothing to do with the Paco gang spotting us, it’s something altogether different.”
“What, then?”
“There’s no easy way to explain it. Jack has a rather rare physical condition, it’s similar to catalepsy, but quite a bit more complicated. I know how to help him where most doctors could not. You have to trust me on this.”
Long pause. “Charles, it’s the kid’s life that’s at stake, not my trust in you. Are you sure?”
“I may strain that trust in the next few minutes, but, yes, I am sure. This is going to get a bit strange, my friend.”
“How so?”
“Just get him up to the bath for a start. You’ll find out.”
A grunt as I was again lifted. “Goddammit, I hate it when you go all Mr. Mystery on me.”
Steps, lots of them, another light clicking on.
“Put him in the tub,” said Charles.
Hard surface, slick.
“Hm. Right. Here, I want to check his eyes.” Fingers prying open one of my eyelids. Blurs, bright blurs. Release back to the pink-tinged shadows. “His pupils are reacting to light, that’s something.” Fingers tugging at my upper lip, pushing it back.
“What the hell . . . ?” More alarm in Shoe’s tone. “What’s wrong with his teeth?”
“It’s all right, in fact, I’m glad they’re like that. I know for certain what to do now.”
“Then do it, but what about his teeth?”
The fingers pressed my lips back into place. “It’s his condition. I said it was complicated, and I promise I’ll explain later.”
“You’re gonna explain all right.”
“When I have more time. I have to hurry.”
“Yeah, he’s bleeding bad. Soaking right through his clothes.”
“Then get them off him. This looks like it will be very messy.” Footsteps retreating.
Hands, pulling at my clothing, tugging. Then an abrupt pause. “Charles.” The voice, sad, tired.
“What?”
“There’s no need to hurry. He’s . . . ”
“He’s not dead.” Statement, not question. A very firm statement.
“I know dead, Charles. And that’s what he is.”
Footsteps returning. Cloth across my face, wiping it clean. “Just watch for a moment. There, see what’s happening? It’s still coming out of him like sweat. A dead man does not bleed.”
“Maybe the poison did that to him, thinned his blood in some crazy way.”
“Or his body is getting rid of it. I told you this could get strange.”
“This is way past strange, this is goddamned weird!”
“I agree, but I’ve no time to commiserate with you on it. Whether you think he’s dead or not, will you stay here in the house with him?”
“Yeah, sure, for what it’s worth.”
“And don’t forget our friend Maxwell downstairs. See to it he’s well trussed up, and some sort of blindfold wouldn’t be out of place, either. I’ve an errand to run, so—”
“You can’t drive.”
“I’m able to and will.”
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“To see a man about a cow.”
More argument, voices fading downstairs. A door shutting. Someone coming back. Hands on me once more peeling away my sodden clothing. Coat, shirt, belt, pants. When the belt slipped away from my waist, the only warmth went with it. The grinding cold encompassed me, and with it came the final comfort of absolute oblivion.
I’D had this dream before, the one where I surprise myself by waking up, the one where I’ve got a tube in my nose that makes it possible for blood to drip down my throat and directly into my stomach. The dream doesn’t last long, just a flash of it on those very rare times when the sun comes and I’m away from my earth. There are always other, much worse dreams to take its place. If it lasted longer than a few seconds I’d consider myself lucky, since compared with the rest it’s not all that bad.
Then I really did awaken, fast, with a startled yelp, struggling to sit up, banging my elbows against the sides of something hard, and I thought for an instant I was in that damned box over the tobacco shop.
“There now, it’s all right, you’re safe,” said Escott, trying to be soothing, I suppose.
I clawed at my face and found the tube and started to pull it out, but that hurt so I forced myself to stop and look around.
The upstairs bathroom. Escott sat on the closed toilet lid, informal in an unbuttoned vest and rolled-up shirtsleeves, his face pinched with concern, bruised eyes red for lack of sleep. Shoe Coldfield filled up most of the doorway, eyes wide, ja
w sagging, and looking like someone had just twisted his nose. I was in the bathtub, cold in my shorts and undershirt, and covered, completely covered, with blood.
I gave another yelp and Escott, talking louder to get through my fear, told me to take it easy. I couldn’t make myself speak; nothing coherent wanted to come out. Held my arms away from my body, smearing more blood against the sides of the tub, adding to the stuff already there. It was on my face, my eyelids, my hair, dried flakes snowing down whenever I moved, and I sat in a thick icy puddle of it, could follow the threads of flow where it had slowly made its way toward the drain.
Escott kept talking, saying my name until after a moment I got hold of my panic and could do better than just sit and shiver and fight the urge to jump up and run off—something I really wanted to do.
“Get this . . . get this thing outta me,” I said hoarsely, gesturing at the tube with trembling fingers. One end of it was in me, right up my nose, for God’s sake, the other led to a bottle hanging from a metal stand. The bottle was nearly full of blood.
“Right, you should have had your fill after all this. Lean back and relax.”
The next few seconds were really boring, but over and done with fast enough, and I felt better, more in control once it was out. He wound the tubing up so it wouldn’t drip and put it and the bottle into the sink. Coldfield just watched and said nothing. I didn’t want to know what he was thinking, but it couldn’t have been good, to tell from the frozen expression on his face.
“Sorry,” I said to the general air. Crazy thing, apologizing when I hadn’t done anything wrong.
Escott snorted, dismissing the whole business. “How do you feel?”
I lifted my arms again. “Disgusting.” I was also still cold through and through, had to keep blinking trying to clear my cloudy sight, and couldn’t quite shake the impression I weighed a ton and a half more than was normal.
“You up to bathing, then?”
Nodded my head. Ready or not, I had to wash clean again. “How’d I get like this?”
“I was rather hoping you’d tell me. What happened after your call to us last night?”