He received no response. The figure remained planted in place, motionless.
“I said hey,” Brody shouted, immediately regretting how loud he was. The last thing he wanted to do was wake someone who would peek out their windows, call the cops, and ensure he’d have another brush with the police. A description of a one-armed man in an Army field jacket would lead them directly to his door.
Brody decided to confront the man, whoever it was. Brody walked toward the figure, fighting the crackle of nervous dread he felt with each step. He hadn’t been afraid to confront the three men following him—he’d faced much worse in the war—but something was wrong here. Terribly wrong. He had to find out who this person was.
Brody stopped in his tracks when the person raised his arm. Brody crouched, took a few quick steps toward a building, immediately wanting to find some sort of shelter. What he initially thought was a weapon being aimed at him, however, was not.
The man was pointing. Arm raised, index finger pointing beyond Brody, as if gesturing for him to look.
Brody did. And saw nothing. He turned back toward the figure quickly, not liking the feeling of taking his eyes off the silhouette, and gasped.
The figure was much closer now. Too close to have walked or run the distance, as if he’d simply moved in a flash of time from one point to another. But the most troubling aspect was how the figure appeared. He was directly under a streetlight now, bathed in its yellow glow, but the figure remained dark as night. No detail. Just a shadow.
It couldn’t be.
Brody wondered if his eyes were playing tricks on him, until the figure moved again.
Brody wasn’t about to turn away, not after the man had moved so quickly the last time.
But he wanted to. The figure wasn’t just pointing; he was gesturing as if he wanted Brody to move in that direction. To keep going.
“What do you want?” Brody asked.
The figure gestured more forcefully this time, then blinked out of existence.
Seconds later, Brody spied the figure again, much farther away down the street, appearing out of nowhere. Then in a flash, he was gone once again.
Brody’s heart thudded away in his chest. What he’d just seen couldn’t be real. If he’d been an addict, he could blame it on a bad flashback, but he’d never taken the hard stuff.
Brody waited for the figure to return, but there was only the silent street before him, buildings partially visible in the spotty glow of streetlamps, disappearing into shadows. Nothing more.
The feeling of being watched was gone now. He was truly alone.
He started to walk back toward his apartment building, then stopped.
The figure had wanted him to go the other way, to continue down the street. He didn’t know why, but Brody felt the need to do just that. He turned, took three steps—
And at that moment, the night came to a close for twenty-six-year-old Brody Quail.
Chapter 8
BRODY16
West Glenn, Colorado
Monday, March 30, 1981
They entered the intersection, and Brody saw the other vehicle speeding toward them. In a split second, Brody took it all in, and his instincts took over.
His feet mashed the clutch and the brake pedal, and he squeezed the hard plastic steering wheel in a death grip. Every muscle in his body tensed, his bones sheathed within a weave of iron bands.
Tick.
Brody watched the smile fade from Joan’s face as she realized something was wrong. She was turned away from the approaching truck and would never see the two-ton mass of motorized steel that would plow directly into her door.
Brody’s last thought before impact was that he should’ve told Joan to put on her seat belt.
Tock.
Blackness.
Floating, in a place with no sound, no sensation.
Brody was aware, but unable to speak, to move. He couldn’t feel anything, or even tell if he was breathing.
Flashes.
The screech of rubber against asphalt. The blare of a horn, for just a second, then abruptly silenced.
Flashes.
The impact. Violent, so loud. Metal against metal, a terrible screeching noise as steel warped and bent, failing, collapsing inward. Glass shattering.
Flashes.
Whipped around. His head striking something hard, then breaking through. A weight slamming into his side. Unbearably soft, unbearably heavy. A sickening realization: Joan.
Flashes.
The smell of gasoline, strong and pungent.
Flashes.
The sound of voices. Frantic. Screaming. The smell of
Flashes.
smoke. Heat against his face.
Hands gripping, pulling.
The wail of sirens.
He could feel his arms, his legs. His chest was moving, drawing breath. Pain, in his side and his head. A throbbing, piercing pain, building in intensity. He squirmed, tried to pull away from the agony, to escape.
And Joan . . .
Brody opened his eyes.
A bird above, motionless in the sky. The air was still, thick. Quiet, eerily so. Brody moved his head, expecting a bolt of pain, but none came.
He was lying on his back in the road. The asphalt was rough against his hands as he pushed himself up to a sitting position. There were people around him, crouching, looking down at him.
Not moving. Their eyes, wet with life, were sightless, looking straight at him, but seeing nothing. They didn’t blink. Not once.
Brody looked at his hands, covered in blood. He was bathed in it, from head to toe. He felt no pain, though.
He looked up into the sky again, at the bird.
It hung there, as if suspended by unseen strings, a child’s plaything.
Brody stood, and took in the scene around him. There was an ambulance, a fire truck, a cloud of black smoke coming from his—
Burning. His car, twisted and broken, engulfed in flames.
Flames that were as motionless as the bird, producing a column of smoke that filled the air. Not moving.
Brody was living within a three-dimensional snapshot, a Polaroid moment of a terrible accident. His accident.
He felt alive, but this couldn’t be.
Then it hit him.
I’m dead.
He must’ve died in the crash, and now he was . . . a spirit?
Brody stood and took a few tentative steps toward a fireman who was midstride in the road, dragging a hose toward his car. One of his boots was off the road, and the other was barely touching the asphalt.
He’s running. Was running. Is running.
Brody reached out, touched the rough fabric of the fireman’s turnout coat.
The fabric was real, as real as the bloody smear Brody’s fingers left behind on the man’s shoulder.
Brody looked at his car again and could feel the heat of the fire against his face. The flames were oddly transparent, orange and white swirls suspended in midair. He stepped toward the wreck, expecting to see his body in the front seat, twisted and blackened by the flames.
And see Joan’s body in there as well.
Brody spun around, looking for her. If he’d died in the wreck, then there was no way Joan could possibly have survived. The truck had slammed directly into the passenger door. Into her.
If she were dead, she would be here, too, right?
All around him, though, there was nothing but stillness, a diorama. Joan was nowhere to be seen. He so wanted to see her wandering around, confused and scared as he was. If he was going to be stuck here forever, then at least he could spend eternity with her.
Brody stepped closer to the car, shielding his face from the heat. Within the snapshot of a swirling inferno, Brody saw something in the front seat, pressed against the crooked steering wheel. A body. A torso. A head. Charred, and dripping, and still. Lips pulled back, revealing white teeth, grinning in a sickening death rictus.
Hands, gripping, pulling.
Only one body. Small.
They pulled me out before it started burning.
Joan was still in the car. What was left of her.
Brody fell to his knees, raised his face to the sky, and screamed.
At that moment, the day ended for sixteen-year-old Brody Quail, while a block away, a dark figure appeared, then blinked away.
PART II
BREAK
Chapter 9
BRODY52
Joshua, Maine
Friday, October 25, 1974
The sun was on its way down, right on schedule.
He couldn’t recall the last time he’d actually watched the sun set. Those were moments best shared with someone else. Now the orange glow behind drawn blinds marked nothing more than the end of one more day of pain.
She’d have hated what he was becoming. A recluse. Shut off from the world, hiding behind shuttered windows, afraid to see the sun, feel the warmth against his face.
Let the outside in, Brody, she’d say.
He’d allowed the outside in once, while he was passed out in this very office. Failed to prevent the horror from slipping through their front door and into their bedroom. A creeping evil that had torn his very heart from his chest.
Brody shuddered at the memory.
He stared at his office walls, adorned with pictures and awards gathered during their life together. In another time, he would gaze upon the mementos and lose himself in the memories.
Now they stared at him through a thin layer of dust. Scorned him. Pitied him.
He opened his desk drawer, removed his revolver. Another part of a past life, cold machined steel, unfeeling.
“I’m so sorry, Reba,” Brody said.
He imagined putting the barrel under his chin, squeezing the trigger. When he’d been a cop, he’d seen what happened to someone after putting a .357 round into their head. Never pretty.
But he didn’t care.
He didn’t care about anything now.
Let the outside in, Brody.
She’d hung the curtains in his office, and he couldn’t help but think how upset she would be if he splattered his brains all over them.
He tossed the gun back in the drawer and slammed it shut, the sound unbearably loud. If he changed his mind, the gun would be there waiting for him.
He wished the fall had killed him that night, as he fumbled with the pistol at the top of the stairs, watching his wife’s killers escape. Why couldn’t he have broken his neck? His death would have been merciful, sparing him from the life he was forced to endure now. Without her.
Brody sat at his desk for the longest time, eyes closed, listening to the ticking of his office clock. Time marching forward, unstoppable, unforgiving.
Tick. She lives.
Tick-tock. She dies.
His wife, gone. His kids, well . . . Brody concluded he’d be lucky if he ever got to see—
one shall pass
—any of them again. They’d read the police reports from that horrible night. Seen what his blood alcohol level had been. They knew their mother had been murdered while their father sat in his office, numbed by Scotch.
Brody leaned against the cool leather of his office chair and sighed. He’d already accepted the guilt, internalized it, suffered, and managed to keep the sour bile of his drunken failure from rising up and choking him to death. But here he sat, in an office full of shadows.
He could get up. Open the blinds. Let the next day’s sunlight stream in and light the path toward a new life. He could call his children, apologize for what he’d allowed to happen. At least try to make amends.
one shall pass
Something wasn’t right. Brody opened his eyes and glanced at the clock, still ticking away. He’d been sitting here for . . . He wasn’t sure how long it’d been. But it was after six o’clock. Felix usually came up to his office before six, bringing something to eat. Felix normally didn’t deviate from his schedule and Brody wondered if something might be wrong.
Brody pushed his chair back and stood, but before he could step toward the door, he felt something else was wrong. Terribly so. Not with Felix exactly, but something closer, more dear to him. For a moment, he considered grabbing the revolver from the drawer but decided against it. He didn’t sense danger, per se, but rather an unsettled feeling he couldn’t quite place.
Brody left his office and walked down the hall, knowing that directly behind him, in the shadows, was the bedroom where his wife was murdered. He walked to the top of the stairs. Listened. The house was quiet.
“Felix?” he called. He waited for a few seconds. No response. That’s odd. “Felix, are you down there?” Again, no answer.
Brody stepped down the curving staircase toward the marble-floored entryway, looking over the banister into the living room, which was lit by a small table lamp in the corner. Felix was a stickler for turning lights off when there was no one in the room but would always leave a few lights on until he retired for the evening. Everything appeared normal, but Brody still felt as if something was not quite right.
Brody walked toward the back of the house, toward the kitchen. The lights were on, he saw, and he could smell food cooking, or more likely being warmed up. Roast again, from last night. “Felix?”
As Brody entered the kitchen, he saw Felix standing by the stove, his back to his employer, working with something at the counter. “There you are,” Brody said. “Didn’t you hear me calling?” Felix didn’t move a muscle, seemingly unaware of Brody’s presence.
“Felix?” Louder. “Felix?”
Brody stepped closer, and Felix remained as still as a statue. Brody stood directly behind him and placed his hand on Felix’s shoulder. “Felix, are you okay?”
Felix was staring down at the counter, where he was making a plate of leftover roast, the remainders of last night’s dinner—
I have your evening meal, sir. I thought you might want to take it in here instead of the dining room.
—that he was probably going to carry upstairs to the office.
Felix’s eyes were open, unblinking, sightless. Brody wondered if Felix was even breathing. The butler seemed to be nothing more than a mannequin, a wax figure placed in the kitchen. Brody stepped back, confused.
There was steam rising from the plate of food . . . but it wasn’t. A small white wisp rose from the roast and, like Felix, sat motionless, suspended in midair.
I’m dreaming, Brody mused. He was surely asleep in his office right now, head down on his desk, and this was nothing more than the product of a tired mind.
A likely explanation until the steam twisted and Felix moved.
Brody watched as Felix noticed his presence from the corner of his eye. “Oh, good evening, Mr. Quail,” Felix said, placing his palm over his heart. “You startled me. I didn’t hear you come into the kitchen.”
Not a dream.
“I was calling for you, Felix.”
“Sir?”
“I called your name, more than once. From right here,” Brody said, motioning at the floor with open hands.
Felix scrunched his brow. “Hmph,” he said. “My apologies, sir. I must’ve been too preoccupied with dinner.” He picked up the plate of food. “I assume you’ll be taking this in your office?”
Brody didn’t respond right away, still trying to comprehend what he’d witnessed.
“Unless you’d rather eat in the dining room this evening, sir?”
I knew he’d say that. “No, Felix. Thank you,” Brody said. “I’m not terribly hungry.”
Felix frowned ever so slightly as he placed the plate back on the counter. “If you’d like something other than the roast from last evening, I could—”
Brody shook his head. “No, Felix, this is fine.” He stared into Felix’s gray eyes, full of life now, normal. “Please. I’ll take a few bites later. And don’t worry about cleaning up,” he added, knowing he wasn’t going to touch the food. “I can take care of it myself.”
“Very well, sir. Un
less you require anything else, I will retire for the evening.”
Brody nodded. After Felix wiped his hands on a dish towel, Brody watched him disappear down the hall toward the south wing of the house, where his quarters were. Brody stared after him for the longest time, wondering what had just happened. Time seemed to have stopped, and only he was aware of it.
But that’s ridiculous. Things like that don’t really happen.
one shall pass
Brody glanced at his watch, the unsettled feeling much worse than before. It was nearly six thirty.
Seven. Something will happen at seven.
Brody was drawn toward the front door, why, he wasn’t sure, but felt as if he needed to see who was—
He jumped at the sound of knocking. Three sharp raps. Again, he looked at his watch. No, this isn’t right. Not right.
Three more knocks at the front door. Brody could see the glow of headlights through the curtains outside. He stepped to the front door.
There would be two uniformed officers. They would be delivering news. Terrible news. Brody opened the door.
“Mr. Quail? Brody Quail?” one of the officers asked.
“Yes, officer,” Brody replied.
“I’m sorry to have to tell you this, sir, but it’s your son. Raymond.”
“Raymond?” Brody said, knowing what he was about to hear. His son Raymond was dead.
“Um . . . Yes, sir. We were notified earlier this evening that your son was severely injured in an automobile accident, sir. And I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but—”
“He’s dead.”
“Yes, sir,” the officer said, glancing down at his feet. “I’m sorry.”
“He was alone,” Brody said, a statement rather than a question. “No one else was hurt.”
“Yes, sir,” the officer said, seemingly not surprised that Brody had predicted what he was about to say. “He was the only occupant in the vehicle.”
The pain and shock Brody should be feeling simply weren’t there. His son was dead, the little boy he used to bounce on his knee, but all he felt was the same nagging churn in the pit of his stomach that he’d been feeling before he came downstairs. “Thank you, officers,” Brody said. “I know this is tough. I’ve had to do it myself before.”
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