Beyond the Spectrum

by G. W. BOILEAU

  When and if it came time to write my report, I was going to have to spend time on getting it right. And hell, if I didn’t deliver the goods to the fae girl before midnight, none of it mattered anyway. Because by then, things from fairy tales would be crawling over the Earth, killing humans everywhere. I pictured Unicorns thrusting horns through people in Walmart, and centaurs shooting arrows as they charged through Disneyland. I almost laughed. Then I thought about an army of Chauns marching the streets of New York, leaving a trail of decapitated bodies in their wake. I swallowed.

  Besides, right now I was still in some small amount of control. I knew where Stuart was hiding out. I had one piece of the data: one backup hard drive. Now I needed to speak with Stuart so I could find the rest of the equipment, and I had two and a half hours left to do it.

  Then all I had to do was hand it over to the fae woman. Sure, she also wanted Stuart and Elise, but one bridge at a time.

  “So?” asked Elise. “Are you going to call anybody?”

  “No more cops need to die tonight,” I said quietly. “Joe and Chuck both had families. I don’t want any more grieving families out there because of me.”

  “Do you have a family?” she asked.

  The question threw me for a second. I faltered, then shook my head. “No.”

  “Me neither,” she said. “I don’t know my parents. I grew up in foster care.”

  “Must’ve been tough,” I said.

  “Sometimes.”

  “Why are you telling me?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I was just thinking . . . no one would miss me. No one would care if I died.”

  “You don’t know that,” I said.

  She looked at me pointedly. “Yes, I do.”

  “Well, I guess that makes two of us, then.”

  We sat in the cold silence for a minute, the world becoming a blur behind the film of water gathering on the windshield.

  “I had a son,” I said quietly. “I don’t talk about him.”

  She was looking at me.

  “He died. Two years ago.” I looked out the window, but it was dark and all I could see was my own reflection.

  “I’m . . . I’m sorry,” she said, almost in a whisper.

  I nodded. Said nothing.

  “My mother died when I was young,” she said. “Drug overdose. I don’t know who my father is. Never met him. I became a ward of the state.”

  “You did pretty well for yourself, considering.”

  “I guess computers were my way of coping. A world to escape to, you know.”

  I nodded. “I can relate, only for me it’s the booze.”

  “I spent two years in juvie.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “Oh. I suppose you do.”

  “What did you do?” I asked.

  She hunkered down a little further under my jacket. “My last foster father wasn’t very nice to me. One night he tried to get on top of me and I stuck a stun gun into his neck. When he was on the ground, I . . . I guess I couldn’t control myself. I used the stun gun on him until the battery ran dead. He died of a heart attack.”

  “Sounds like he had it coming.”

  It was her turn to look away. “I don’t know. Maybe. I killed him and it screwed with my head for years. I still think of it sometimes. Most times.” There was another long silence, then she turned back to me and said, “How did he die?”

  “I don’t like to talk about it,” I said.

  She just kept looking at me.

  I rubbed my face, then breathed out a lungful of air. “It was the night before his fifteenth birthday. Me and Molly, my ex-wife, we got all his presents out ready for him. A game console, basketball, skateboard, a subscription to a gaming magazine. He loved his video games, you know. He’d been wanting that console so damn badly. In the morning . . . we went into his room to surprise him and . . . he was just lying there. Peacefully.” I looked up at the roof lining. My throat was burning and I swallowed hard against the hot coal that had lodged there. “The coroner couldn’t tell us why. No reason. Nothing at all. He just died in his sleep and no one could tell me a goddamned thing.”

  Elise said nothing. I couldn’t believe I had told her. I hadn’t told anyone. People knew, but I had never told anyone before. To say it out loud would be too damn painful. It was, and tears burned in my eyes. I rubbed them away. “It ruined me. Hit the drink pretty hard. My wife left. I was just so angry, you know . . .” I laughed without humor. “Still am.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said again. “Have you spoken to anyone?”

  “That’s what people keep asking me.”

  “Sorry I—”

  “It’s okay.” I wiped my nose. “I mean, sure, I had to speak with a shrink to get back on the job, but I just told her what she wanted to hear. Now that Molly’s gone, I don’t see much point in living anymore. Except for this job. My lieutenant knows it. It’s the only reason he hasn’t taken me out of the game.” I wiped my eyes again. The tears wouldn’t stop coming. I laughed dryly, pulling my shirt up and wiping my whole face. “Shit, you don’t need to hear this.”

  “I don’t mind,” she said. “I don’t mind at all.”

  “The world’s a fucked-up place,” I said. “I see it every day. I’ve lived through it firsthand. And after today I don’t know what to think anymore . . .”

  “We found another world, Blake,” she said. “It’s a miracle. There are things out there we don’t know about.”

  “You about to sell Jesus to me, Elise?”

  She smiled. “No. It’s just we don’t know. All I’m saying is, yeah, the world is screwed up, but who knows what happens to us when we die? Before today, you never would’ve believed me if I told you there was another world out there beyond our own.”

  I stared at her. Her copper eyes were wide and her face was pale and sweet, her lips tinged blue. She was a beautiful woman.

  “I’m glad you’re here with me,” I said. “I mean—” I smiled and broke off.

  “Me too,” she said, and she ducked her mouth under my jacket again.

  And just then, a flash of blue blurred past her window. I sat up. A big guy in a blue poncho was riding up the street, toward the Whittle Inn. Hanging by his side in one hand was a Safeway bag. Whatever was inside looked to be in the rough shape of cans. Apple cider.

  Elise sat up. “That’s him! That’s Stuart.”

  TWENTY

  I pushed opened the door of the Road Runner and got one boot down on the asphalt when I heard a car engine start down the street. It revved loud and high-intensity headlights lit up the road. I stood up and watched as the vehicle roared toward Stuart.

  The bike’s rear tire locked up and Stuart came to a skidding halt in the middle of the street. Then he awkwardly started turning around, still trying to hold on to the Safeway bag, hopping, turning the bike. But by then, the car was right behind him. The brakes were on and the car was sliding to a stop until it was perpendicular to the road. It was a big car. A big black Cadillac Escalade.

  I ran toward Stuart. “Stuart!” I cried out.

  He saw me and panicked. Now he had nowhere to go. He was blocked both ways, and by then it was all too late. The doors of the Escalade were popping open. Three men dressed in black fatigues were jumping out. One of them was holding a big-ass gun.

  “Stuart!” I cried again.

  Two guys ran to Stuart. They held handguns and screamed, “Get in the fucking car!”

  The bike hit the road and a bell rang. The Safeway bag hit the asphalt, followed by a loud hiss.

  “Get in the car, fat ass! Move it!”

  I was running toward them, but I had parked too damn far away. As the two wrestled Stuart Arnold into the Cadillac, the guy with the gun aimed it in my direction and opened fire.

  The thing barked in his hands, and bullets spat out across the drizzle of the night.

  I dived behind a parked car. Steel hit steel, echoing out like exploding metal popcorn. Bullets tore through th
e paneling, pinging holes in the body, tires hissing, glass shattering.

  Then there was a car revving. Doors slamming and tires spinning on the wet asphalt.

  Shit! They were getting away. Shit! This couldn’t happen. Not now. Not when I was so damn close. I got up and ran back to the Road Runner. Elise was huddled down in her seat.

  “What’s happening?”

  “Come on!” I cried.

  I started the car and stomped on the gas.

  I like auto magazines. I read a lot of the things. They’re good for reading up on the latest models. They’re also good for giving out information on how well a car drives, and they follow it up with facts. Facts on curb weight, and horsepower and how many miles per gallon a vehicle gets. You point out a car to me, I can almost guarantee you I know its weight, how many miles it gets to the gallon, and how much horsepower it has at the wheels.

  The Cadillac was a big car. It came with a powerful 6.2-liter V-8 and could do zero to sixty in about six seconds flat. Pretty quick for a big, heavy car.

  When my 1969 Plymouth Road Runner first came out, it could do it in about six point six, but that was before I dropped more than half my yearly salary into the engine bay, stroking the 440 up to 505 cubic inches. Add on the six-barrel and three-inch flow master and the thing gets awful loud, and awful fucking quick.

  So when I took off after the Cadillac, Elise reached out for anything she could grab like a baby with startle reflex. But she couldn’t grab anything, ’cause the g-force was slamming her into her seat.

  We tore past the Whittle Inn and the girl with the purple hair was standing out front, jaw gaping. She was going to have a story to tell her friends after all.

  We caught the Escalade in no time at all. The black SUV sped straight through a stop sign and I followed it. Then it kicked out its rear end as it hurtled left onto the wide road of West Iowa Avenue, and I mimicked the sliding arc.

  I couldn’t hear shit over the Road Runner’s screaming engine. That was, until I heard the pops of gunfire coming from the Escalade. A hand was hanging out the window, shooting off a pistol in my direction. It ain’t an easy target when the car you’re in is swerving all over the road. It’s even harder when you’re facing the wrong way. I pulled out my own handgun and started firing back in a game of chance. Except my rounds were louder ’cause they were right next to my face. The little gun barked out, and once again I was feeling like a cowboy.

  We tore through the stoplight of Mathilda Avenue, then the street narrowed and got a little windy. The driver was pushing it. Tires tore through the curves of the wet road and I followed him, close on his ass.

  He wasn’t going to lose me. No way that was happening. No way in hell. The Road Runner was a machine built for speed. No fucking way was he getting away from me.

  We sped through a green light, and he started to slow down. Like he knew he wasn’t getting away. Like he didn’t have a chance in hell. I thought, was he going to wave a white flag?

  But there’s a rule when it comes to car chases. It goes like this: the person chasing has to have the bigger gun. ’Cause if he doesn’t have a bigger gun, then why the hell is the other guy running in the first place?

  Which is probably what they all just figured out inside the big black Escalade.

  Someone suddenly hung out the window with a big-ass fuck-off assault rifle. A little shit came out and I stomped hard on the brakes. The Road Runner’s tires bit into the wet asphalt, and the machine gun started using up ammo like a slot machine chucking out coins to a jackpot winner.

  “Hold on!” I cried.

  I turned the wheel and the locked tires went into a slide, bullets rattling against the outside panels. I lost control and the thing went into a spin. I wrestled with the wheel, trying to get it back. The world was spinning, bullets were flying.

  We came to a stop and the tail lamps of the Cadillac were fading in the distance. But he wasn’t getting away. Not in this car. No fucking way was he getting away.

  I turned the wheel.

  “What can—” Elise barely got the words out.

  Headlights filled up the mirrors and there was a blinding smash! My world tumbled out of control. Upside down, rolling, my head whipping. Elise was screaming. Steel was scraping and banging, windows smashing.

  Then everything abruptly stopped. There was a hissing from somewhere, and the patter of falling glass joined the rain against the asphalt.

  I was upside down and the belt holding me in place was burning across my legs. Elise’s hair and arms were dangling beside me.

  “Elise,” I said, but it came out croaky and quiet.

  I clicked my belt and dropped, hitting the roof hard. My body screamed. My lungs felt like knitting needles were pressing against them. I couldn’t breathe right and my head was swimming with dizziness.

  Then there were footsteps. Boots crunching on glass. Each step getting closer, and closer, and closer.

  I turned around, my hands shuffling in the broken glass. Silver pants and shiny black shoes came into view.

  I looked for my revolver in my hand, but it wasn’t there.

  “Hello?” came a man’s voice. It sounded friendly. Like a concerned citizen.

  I looked up and saw his face. He was bent over and looking into the car with a smile. He had a weaselly-looking face. His teeth gleamed in the night and he had blood on his forehead. Smeared, like he’d run his hand across it.

  I looked around, searching for the handgun, but I couldn’t see it anywhere. It was dark and there was glass everywhere, and Elise was unconscious, her arms and her hair hanging down like a doll. And I was searching around like a kid in a sandpit, except the sand was glass and my hands were getting bloody.

  “I didn’t see you there,” the guy said.

  “I . . . who are you?” I asked.

  Then he showed me his gun. It was a gold thing, with a suppressor. I couldn’t see it properly. I wondered which model it was. Why it did it even matter? It didn’t. I was confused.

  Then the guy crouched down, like a toddler in a sandpit. The way they squat down and dig holes with their fingers. Will used to do that. When I’d take him to the beach.

  The guy pointed the golden gun at me, aimed his eye down the sights.

  I was still thinking about my boy in the sand, digging holes, holding his sandy fingers up to me and saying, “Look, Daddy. Sand.”

  I felt something hard under my ass. My foot? No it couldn’t be my foot ’cause my foot wasn’t under my ass. Both my feet were out in front of me. So what was bothering me under my ass? It was a pretty hard shit if that’s what it was. Did I shit myself?

  “You know,” he said, “I don’t like killing cops. But I don’t got a choice here, I’m afraid. The boss man tells me to do something, I gotta do it. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Boss man?” I mumbled. “Who’s your boss man?”

  He grinned. “It doesn’t matter who it is, ’cause you’ll be dead in a second and you won’t be thinking who is that man’s boss man, will you?”

  “Tell me anyway,” I said, looking around. “It’s bothering me. Hey, did I shit myself?”

  He threw his head back and laughed. He looked around and then back to me, as if thinking, I’m taking too long, but what the hell, this is amusing.

  “Malcolm Bach,” he said. “CEO of Bach Optics. Smart guy. I’m an ex-cop, you see, so I don’t get much pleasure in killing cops. But like I said, orders are orders.” He raised his gold gun again. It was a Sig, I was sure of it. One eye closed, he looked down the sights, right at me. I just stared right back.

  I thought of Will. Playing in the sand, showing me his little fingers. They were all sandy and I needed to clean them. Brush them off with my hands. I wanted to hold him. Pull him into me. But he wasn’t here. He was dead, and it hurt so goddamn bad. But it was okay, I thought, ’cause I was going to go see him now.

  “I’m coming, kid.”

  “Nighty night,” he said, then he pulled the trigge
r.

  Nothing happened.

  He laughed out again, like a surprised laugh. “Oh shit,” he said. “I must have hit my head harder than I thought. Forgot the saf—”

  He didn’t finish his sentence. I shot him.

  I aimed for his head, but my arm was weak and my head was groggy. The bullet hit the guy in the shinbone. And when you’re crouched down and putting weight on that bone, well, I guess it’s like knocking out a support beam. He toppled over, screaming and holding on to it, like right now that was his biggest concern. But it wasn’t. ’Cause I was aiming again, this time with two hands. And this time I didn’t miss. I shot that weasel fuck right in the face. It hit just under the weasel’s nose and right above his open screaming mouth. It made an awful mess. Must have hit his brain too, ’cause the screaming stopped real quick.

  Elise was moaning. I unclicked her seat belt and she fell into my arms. The knitting needles drove deeper into my lungs and I gasped. Then I crawled out and pulled her with me.

  “Hey,” I said. “Elise?” Her eyes were opening, then closing, and she was moaning. “Elise, wake up.”

  “Blake?” she mumbled.

  “Thatta girl,” I said, moving her hair out of her face with a bloodied finger.

  I looked around. I saw Stuart’s hard drive, broken on the ground beside the upturned Road Runner. I went and picked it up.

  There was a big white car sitting next to the Road Runner with the engine still running. It had enormous black wheels and a dented and scratched-up black bull bar. The make was a Ram 2500. Fitting. I didn’t want to look at the Road Runner. It was a damn mess.

  Sirens were echoing down the street. We had to go.

  I picked Elise up off the road, and she wrapped her arms around my neck as I lifted. My shoulder flared into red-hot pain. My chest screamed.

  She was groaning. She was hurt too. Somewhere inside her small body, bones had broken.

  I limped over to the big Ram and helped her into the passenger side. She cried out as she sat back. Then I stumbled around the car and got into the driver’s seat, throwing the hard drive into the passenger footwell.