“Get the fuck away from her,” Harrison said to the women.
The one with the covered head raised her arm. She held a small black pistol that seemed enormous. He felt as if he was hurtling into that black barrel.
The woman’s pink lips parted as if in satisfaction.
He tried to settle himself. He’d had firearms pointed at him before. But maybe this was one of the things you never got used to.
The tall woman took Greta by the arm and led her out. The small one kept her gun on Harrison.
Greta looked over her shoulder. “Goodbye, Harrison Squared.”
Chapter 10
We were a team of professional insomniacs. Once you know there are monsters under the bed, closing your eyes becomes a foolhardy act. So, we paced. We stared into the dark. We listened for the creak of the opening door.
Dr. Sayer was no exception. Sleep had always been hard to come by for her, but the situation had only gotten worse since Barbara had died. In those thin hours after midnight, Jan was certain she’d made a terrible mistake. If she hadn’t formed the group, if she hadn’t prodded and poked them into sharing and reflectingand processing, perhaps their sadness would have gone dormant. Perhaps Barbara would still be alive.
If her patients had started talking like this she would have known what to say. So, on those sleep-starved nights, she said those words to herself, and sometimes believed them. Then she would head down to the basement. The relief didn’t last long, though. Sometimes it vanished before she made it to the bottom of the stairs. Then she would walk back up, lock the door behind her, and make another circuit of her house.
Harrison had been right; this was no hero’s journey they were on. Campbell didn’t understand the other stories in the world. The group knew the truth:
A monster crosses over into the everyday world. The mortals struggle and show great courage, but it’s no use. The monster kills first the guilty, then the innocent, until finally only one remains. The Last Boy, the Last Girl. There is a final battle. The Last One suffers great wounds, but in the final moment vanquishes the monster. Only later does he or she recognize that this is the monster’s final trick; the scars run deep, and the awareness of the truth grows like an infection. The Last One knows that the monster isn’t dead, only sent to the other side. There it waits until it can slip into the mundane world again. Perhaps next time it will be a knife-wielding madman, or a fanged beast, or some nameless tentacled thing. It’s the monster with a thousand faces. The details matter only to the next victims.
As for the Last Ones, the survivors of each spin of the wheel, the best they could hope for was to learn how to live with their knowledge. On most days, she believed she could help others do that.
Deep into the night, however, the doubts slid their claws into her brain, pried her open like an orange. She feared that she was keeping secrets from herself. What if she was hurting these people? What if she longed for destruction? What if she’d become, at last, her mother’s daughter?
And so it was almost a relief when the phone rang.
“Dr. Sayer,” Harrison said. “I need your help.”
Harrison was surprised to find Dr. Sayer waiting for him on her front porch. She was wearing black jeans and a thin black fleece over a flash of red T-shirt. Her hair was pulled back tight. It was weird to see her in street clothes. He felt like a third-grader spying his teacher at the grocery store.
She climbed into the car and he said, “You don’t have to do this. You could just make the call, then stay here.”
“It’ll work better if I talk to him.”
He had to admit that if he asked Martin, the kid would say no. “Okay,” he said. “He never liked me or Greta. But he listens to you.”
“Martin was afraid of Greta,” Jan said. “He always liked her. He’s made great strides. What did you do to your hand?”
“Nothing.” He’d wrapped his hand with a beige chamois cloth he kept in the glove box. His skin still throbbed. “What’s Stan’s address?”
She read it off to him, and he typed it into the GPS. While he drove, she called ahead to Stan’s house. He picked up immediately, and Harrison could hear his voice booming over Jan’s cell phone.
“Could you wake Martin?” she asked Stan. Then: “Oh. Good.” And then: “I don’t know why, exactly.” She looked at Harrison. “Harrison said we need Martin’s skill set.”
She told Stan a little bit of what Harrison had told her. She said to Harrison, “Martin wants to know if you have the frames.”
“Tell him it’s all set. Just get ready.”
After she’d hung up, Jan said, “You do have a plan, right?”
“It’s a kind of plan,” he said. After the Sisters took Greta, he followed them downstairs, hanging back to avoid being seen—and shot. By the time he reached the street, they were pulling away in an ancient silver Pontiac, a wide, rattling thing. He ran back to the garage and to his car, but by the time he pulled around front the streets were empty. He swore at himself, then drove to Greta’s apartment, not because he thought they’d be there, but because he couldn’t think of anyplace else to check. Finally he called Jan.
Stan’s house was a two-story Victorian guarded by a chain-link fence. The house seemed to have vomited its contents into the front yard. Furniture and objects loomed mysteriously out of the dark.
“Whoa,” Harrison said.
“I really should do home visits,” Jan said.
The front door opened, and Stan appeared in his chair, with Martin behind him. Martin pushed him down the ramp into the yard. And Stan, that crazy bastard, had a shotgun across his lap.
Harrison hopped out of the car and went to the gate. “No no no no no.”
“What?” Stan asked.
“We just need Martin,” Harrison said. “And no . . . that.”
“You’re going after crazy cult members,” Stan said. “Trust me, you need artillery.”
“We are not shooting anyone,” Jan said.
“What are you going to do?” Stan asked. “Talk?”
Harrison noticed that Stan was wearing a pair of split-hook prostheses. “Wait, when did you get those?”
“I’ve got loads of ’em,” Stan said. “Hooks, rubber hands, you name it. I only use them for special occasions. Like pulling triggers.”
“Jesus,” Harrison said. “Martin, get in the car. I’ll get Stan back into the house.”
“No,” Martin said. “Stan comes with.”
“Absolutely not.”
“We discussed it,” Martin said. “Stan’s part of the group too. And I need him if we’re going to do this. It’s all for one—”
“Or all for nothing,” Stan said.
Harrison thought about the images etched into Barbara’s bones. All of them, connected. “Okay. Fine. But no fucking shotgun.”
“You’re going to regret it,” Stan said, but allowed Martin to take the weapon from him. He waved to a spot in the yard and said, “Hide it in that oven there.”
They managed to lift Stan into the backseat, and Jan helped buckle him in. Martin expertly collapsed Stan’s chair and levered it into the trunk.
“You have the frames?” Martin asked. “I’ll start loading the software.”
“About the glasses . . .” Harrison began.
“You said you had a pair.”
“We don’t have time to go break into Radio Shack.”
“They’re not sold in—”
“It’s going to be okay, Martin. Come on.”
“How can I track them if you don’t have frames!”
“Please, just get in.”
Martin got into the front seat, and Harrison punched the accelerator. The streets were mostly empty of cars this time of night, though not necessarily empty of cops. He just had to hope they didn’t get stopped.
“I like this car,” Stan said from the back.
In ten minutes they swung into Harrison’s neighborhood. His block was lined by boutique shops at ground level and
upscale condos above. Harrison slammed on the brakes. Stan laughed throatily.
“There’s the entrance to my building,” Harrison said. “This spot is where they took off from, an hour and five minutes ago, give or take. What’s your range, Martin?”
“I don’t have a range,” Martin said. “I need the frames!”
“No,” Harrison said. “You don’t.”
“You have no idea how this works,” Martin said.
Harrison opened the driver’s side door. “Get out,” he said to Martin. The kid looked at him. “Come on!”
Martin reluctantly climbed out of the car. Harrison took him by the shoulders and stood him in front of the headlights.
“You said Greta left trails wherever she went. Wakes, you called them.”
“Yes.”
“You know that those wakes can’t be seen by the naked eye.”
“That’s why I need—”
“Listen to me!” Harrison said. It was difficult not to shake the kid. “Those trails are not made out of photons. Hardware can’t see them. Software can’t see them. Only you can see them, Martin. You want to know why?”
“This is bullshit,” Martin said.
“You’ve got the sight,” Harrison said. “The third eye. The sixth sense.”
“I don’t see dead people,” Martin said.
“No, you see worse. I’ve met people like you before. You have a talent. You don’t need a gadget to make it work.”
“Is this where you tell me to put away the targeting computer?” Martin asked.
“No, I’m not—yes. Yes, this is where I tell you to put the fucking computer away. Use the force, Luke.”
Jan had gotten out of the car. “What’s going on?”
Harrison turned Martin to face the road. “They drove off in this direction. You see the intersection? Just tell me—did they turn left, right, or go straight?”
“I don’t see anything.”
“Concentrate,” Harrison said. He gripped the kid’s shoulders as if he were prepping him to go into the ring. “Picture the wake.”
“I’m concentrating.” Martin stared down the street.
“Left?” Harrison said. “Right?”
Martin wheeled and pushed Harrison’s arms off him. “I told you, I need the frames!”
“Martin,” Jan said softly. “Can we try something?”
Harrison put up his hands and stepped back.
“Just guess,” Jan said to Martin.
“What?”
“Don’t try to see the wake. Just look down the road and say the first thing you think of.”
Martin took a breath. He squared his shoulders, stared at the intersection, and said, “Straight.”
“Good,” Jan said.
“Or maybe right.”
“No take-backs. Ready? Into the car.”
Harrison eased them up to the intersection. “Keep going?” he asked.
Martin shook his head. “I can’t see a thing.”
Jan was leaning between the front seats. “Doesn’t matter. Keep going.”
Harrison scowled at Jan, but he wasn’t sure she saw his expression. He went straight, then slowed at the next cross street. Martin sighed, so Harrison kept going.
The light at Madison was red. Martin rubbed at his face. When the light turned green, Harrison accelerated, and Martin said, “Oh.”
“What is it?” Jan asked.
“Nothing. Just . . . maybe we should have gone right.”
“Harrison?” Jan said.
He wheeled the car around in the middle of the street. An oncoming car blared its horn and Stan raised a hook—flipping the metal bird.
At the light Harrison swung left onto Madison in the direction Martin had maybe kinda sorta thought they should go. Maybe, Harrison thought, we should just turn off the GPS and get a Ouija board.
“You’re doing great,” Jan said.
“Damn straight he is,” Stan said.
Martin grew more confident in his answers. He led them crosstown, then south. The Sisters, if Martin’s tracking was accurate, had stayed off the interstate and major throughways, but neither were they dodging or weaving. They probably never thought they could be followed.
Martin led them into one of the rattier sections of town: weather-beaten apartment buildings, check-cashing stores, ’60s-era brick ranches defended by sagging chain-link fences. The cars at the curb were either gleaming refurbs or rusting heaps, a binary distribution.
Martin pointed at a space between buildings. “Turn right there.”
“That’s an alley,” Harrison said. “But okay.”
He nosed the car into the alley. He drove slowly for a hundred yards, and then Martin yelled, “Stop!”
The kid’s eyes were wide. He was staring at the back of a three-story apartment building that looked like it had been abandoned years ago. “Can’t you see it?” he said. “Up there.”
Graffiti swirled like kudzu up the brick walls. The windows were covered with plywood except for the top floor, where lights flickered from an open window.
Harrison edged the car forward. Behind the building, three cars were crammed into a tiny gravel lot. One of them was the silver Pontiac the Sisters had driven away in.
“It’s coming out,” Martin said. His voice sounded far away. “The bottle’s open.”
The bottle’s open.
Harrison swore. They might already be too late. “Okay,” he said. “Everybody stay in the car.”
“I’m coming with,” Jan said.
“You’re not leaving me out of it!” Stan said.
“Nobody fucking move!” Harrison said, not quite yelling. “I’ll be right back.”
He ran for the back steps of the building. There was a rear door, made of rusting metal. A chain and padlock held it closed.
He heard voices and looked up. From the open windows, female voices chanted in a strange language. Chanting was never good.
Jan appeared behind him. “I’m going around front,” he said. “Just . . . guard this door.” Before she could argue with him, he jumped off the steps and ran for the side of the building. The space between buildings was narrow and dark, the walls seeming to pinch shut above him. He bashed his knee against a hunk of metal—an air conditioning unit? a refrigerator?—and stifled a shout of pain. He squeezed past the obstruction, then hobbled toward the mouth of the little alley.
A group of people was walking down the sidewalk toward him. He stepped back into the shadows, but really the whole street was in shadow: The sky above the rooftops was the color of a bruise; the sole patch of light glowed from a distant streetlamp. Three women, silhouettes in long skirts, passed within feet of him, talking in low voices. Arabic? Persian? He couldn’t tell.
Wood shrieked. He risked a peek around the corner. The front door of the building was a wooden slab that looked like it had been chewed off at the bottom. A wedge of light spilled onto the sidewalk, then vanished as the door closed with another shriek. He waited ten, perhaps twenty seconds, then limped toward the entrance.
The door did not quite meet the frame. He leaned closer, but could see nothing on the other side but a dim light. He could not hear the women’s voices, or the chanting he’d heard earlier.
Greta was wrong about him. He’d never been brave, even as a boy. Everything he did felt like a forced move, the only option he could think of at the time. And now here he was again, creeping around in the dark, playing Monster Detective.
He put a palm against the door and pushed.
The lobby was lit only by an electric lamp that sat on the floor. Rows of metal mailboxes gleamed along one wall, some of them open like black mouths: eels waiting in the rocks. A door once guarded the stairwell, but that was off its hinges now and lay flat on the garbage-strewn floor.
He’d stepped three feet into the lobby when a figure came down the stairs: the tiny woman in the sweater scarf. Her pink lips opened in surprise. They stared at each other for what seemed like seconds, but could
only have been a moment. Then her eyes narrowed and her right arm jerked up. Her hand was full of metal.
He threw himself backward and slammed into the wooden door. It opened halfway and dumped him onto the cement. The Sister ran toward him, the pistol twitching at the end of her arm.
He scrambled backward. “Don’t shoot!” Once, when he was younger, he would have been stupid enough to say something clever.
The Sister halted just outside the door, framed by the dim light of the electric lantern. She aimed the gun at his face. He was on his back, arms and legs splayed, a crab caught in mid-scuttle.
She glanced left, then right. He thought, Maybe there’ll be bystanders! She wouldn’t shoot him in front of witnesses, would she? But the street was as dark as before, and there was no one on the sidewalk.
“How the fuck did you find us?” she said. Her voice was nasal, the accent pure Brooklyn. That threw him. He was expecting something more exotic.
She took a step forward. “Talk, you piece of shit!”
The woman did not quite finish the word “shit.” A black shape came out of the dark to her right and enveloped her, knocking her out of the wedge of light. The two figures hit the ground and rolled, then rolled again. The new attacker clung to the tiny woman’s back.
It was Jan. One arm was cinched around the Sister’s neck, the other around her chest and arm, pinning the gun to her side. Her legs were wrapped around the woman’s hips.
The Sister tried to get to her feet; she got one hand under her and pushed, but Jan shifted her weight and rolled onto her back, keeping the woman pinned against her chest. The Sister struggled, but the choke-hold was unrelenting. The woman’s pink lips worked as she tried to get air. The pistol dropped from her fingers.
Harrison reached them. “Jan,” he said. “Dr. Sayer.”
The doctor’s face was distorted by some crazed emotion. The whites of her eyes had nearly vanished; her pupils were black and reflective as oil.
We Are All Completely Fine Page 11