He was alive.
Slowly, the faces came. Brody saw his friends Kyle, Jason, and Tim. He saw Joan, looking as beautiful as always. He was in his car with her, getting ready to drive her home, when she sat on something (a yellow plastic dinosaur, of all things) and he threw it in the backseat. She asked if it belonged to his little brother.
That was it! Brody remembered the pain, the feeling of falling headlong into a dark abyss right after she asked him that question.
The face. The little boy’s face!
He struggled to remember what he’d seen: a kid, maybe five, six years old, staring up at him.
He’s a pain in the ass, but I’d die for him.
But that couldn’t be. Brody didn’t have a brother. The feelings he had for the little boy, though, were impossible to ignore. He’d glimpsed another life, one where he did, in fact, have a little brother named—
His name is Murphy. Murf.
The name came through as clear as a bell. And then so did other things. Remembering his brother’s name released memories, images of people and places so familiar, and yet so unfamiliar, that the entire experience was hard to fathom.
But there remained a constant: his life.
My name is Brody Quail. I’m sixteen years old, living in West Glenn, Colorado, a sophomore at Forrest J. Gerber Senior High. I drive a beat-up 1963 Chevy Impala.
His life.
But there was more.
He saw a house where love had been broken apart by a terrible tragedy. He saw a bottle of booze and a gun in a drawer, both of which seemed to call to him, to pull his strings.
He saw an icy street where people wanted to hurt him.
He saw a playground where kids played a game with a football, and Murf wanted nothing more than to join in.
As each wave of memories washed over him, he explored them, watched, listened, noted every detail that he could. Even the little things, like the yellow toy dinosaur Joan had sat on, a T. rex, became more and more real to him. Because they were real.
All these strange memories seemed just as real as his own life.
And then he remembered something—someone—else.
The other constant.
Her name was Connie.
There was a sudden flash of brightness.
“It doesn’t work from the outside,” Brody yelled, leaning over and popping the door lever.
“Thanks,” Joan said, placing her books between them on the bench seat and slamming her door shut. “Ouch! What the heck?” She sat up a little and reached under her leg, pulling out whatever she’d sat on. She held it up for Brody to see. “Brody Quail, are you still playing with little-kid toys?”
Brody took the dinosaur from her. He stared at it, turned it over in his hands, and knew it was his. But it belonged somewhere else.
“Is it your little brother’s?” Joan asked.
Brody expected to feel the familiar pain, but it didn’t come, at least not as violently as before. His head throbbed a little, but the pain was manageable.
“Nah,” he said, placing the T. rex back down on the front seat. “Not mine. And I don’t have a brother.” In a way, he felt like he was lying to her. “I don’t know where it came from.” Another lie, because he knew exactly where the toy belonged: in a bedroom, on a shelf right next to a model of a World War II Grumman Avenger torpedo bomber.
His room. His other room.
“My house is on Lincoln,” Joan said, “a couple of blocks away. Take the first left from Michigan and—”
“You’re the third house on the left,” Brody said, finishing her statement for her.
“Um, that’s right,” Joan said, a little surprised. “How do you know where I live?”
“I guess Jason must’ve mentioned it,” he lied. “Want to put your seat belt on?”
She smiled at him. “A Brody rule, huh?”
“Yep. You never know when some moron will run a red light and smash into you.” He watched her face as he said it but saw no reaction.
“Yeah, I guess so.” Joan shoved her lap belt into the buckle and settled back in the seat.
Brody started the car and backed out of the parking space. He would probably never make it to Joan’s house if he did everything the same way he’d done it before. And he had done it before, more times than he could remember. This time would be different, though; he would stop at the red light and avoid the accident. He’d get Joan safely home, and then he’d look for Connie. But as soon as he’d formulated the plan in his mind, he knew he’d never get the chance, at least not this time.
He felt the sensation come on quickly. He gripped the wheel tightly, clenching his teeth, trying to keep it together. Pointless. He would go away, to the dark place, just like Connie. The place where he couldn’t move, couldn’t feel. The place where he would wait and remember. The pain built in intensity until it felt as if someone were pouring molten lead through a hole in the back of his skull, where it burned its way down through his neck and into his chest. He began to scream.
“Cool car,” he heard Joan say. “How fast have you had it?”
Brody stopped fighting the pain. Darkness swallowed him.
Chapter 26
BRODY52
Joshua, Maine
Friday, October 25, 1974
Brody found himself standing outside the bedroom door.
He wasn’t sure, at first, exactly how long he’d been standing there. All he knew was that he was there, with no recollection of what he’d been doing hours or even minutes before. As he stared at the closed door, he slowly became aware that things weren’t as they seemed. Bits and pieces of memory began to slip into his consciousness, like tiny wisps of steam from a cup of coffee, there for a moment, glimpsed, then disappearing into thin air.
Something had happened in that room. Something bad. And for the first time, he was certain it had nothing to do with his Reba.
At least, not exactly. She looked like Reba but wasn’t really her. She had a different name, too, although it remained just out of reach in his mind. Another wisp of steam.
She had been in the bedroom . . . No . . . she had been dragged into the room by something dark, ominous.
Brody raised his hand to his ear, felt the curve, expected to find a piece missing. No, his ear was intact, and there was no pain, no blood. But why did he think a part of his ear was gone? He closed his eyes, searched his thoughts, peeking into the shadows in his mind.
He’d been shot at, the bullet missing his head but clipping his ear, and then he’d fallen into—
Connie. That was her name. The woman dressed like his Reba but not really her. The wisps of steam were remaining visible longer. “Everything is going to be fine now, Mr. Quail,” Brody whispered to himself. “Everything is going to be fine.”
Felix. With the gun, shooting at him.
He’d stared down the barrel of his old service weapon, heard the hammer click, seen the flash, and heard the boom. Heard the zing of the bullet as it passed. Felt the sting as it clipped his ear.
Brody felt a sharp pain in the back of his head, which quickly subsided, leaving a dull throb. He was remembering, and it hurt. Just like before.
Brody turned away from the door and stepped down the hall to his office, keeping an eye on the top of the stairs, expecting Felix to appear at any moment.
His old friend. But not anymore.
Something was terribly wrong in this house. After all the pain he’d endured, all the suffering, another layer of darkness had descended upon his home.
Brody opened his desk drawer and found his Smith & Wesson Model 27 sitting right where it always was. He opened the cylinder and saw six .357 Magnum cartridge primers staring back at him. He reached toward the back of the drawer and found the box of ammo. He emptied it into his hand and put the cartridges into his pockets. He didn’t have a holster for the weapon anymore, so he tucked the loaded revolver into the back of his pants, the cold steel pressing against his lower back. Not the smartest way to
carry a loaded weapon, but it would have to do.
Please, Mr. Quail, you have to stop this insanity! Felix had said.
I will stop it, Felix, Brody said to himself. I’ll stop it right now.
Brody walked from his office and turned toward the bedroom just as he heard the first knock at the front door.
Two police officers. Telling him his son had been killed in a car accident earlier in the day. Then he would stare at his pistol, think about blowing his own head off, or grab a bottle and wrestle with all the old demons.
Because it was what he was supposed to do.
“No more,” Brody said out loud. “I’m done playing your game.” He turned, his eyes searching the hallway but finding nothing. “Do you hear me?” he said louder. “I’m not playing your game anymore. I’m done!”
He stepped to the bedroom door and grasped the handle. He paused, the memories of his life in this house tumbling before his eyes.
More knocks from downstairs, the officers at the front door.
The office. It was always the office. He had the pictures of his life with Reba, all the fun times as they raised their family, hanging on the wall, but he couldn’t remember anything else. What had they done in between those pictures? Had they ever fought? Spent time together in the mountains? Traveled to any foreign countries?
Nothing was there. Not a goddamned thing.
Only the office. Only the pictures.
As clarity descended, another sharp pain sliced through his head behind his eyes, causing his legs to buckle and turning his stomach. He clenched his teeth, fighting through the ordeal. Tears filled his eyes. The pain grew worse. “No!” he screamed. “I’m not going to play—your—game—anymore!” His hand shook, the doorknob rattling in his grip.
Then the torment in his skull began to subside once again, the dull throbbing settling into a rhythm with the beat of his heart. He could do this, he could manage the pain. He had to, in order to discover exactly what was going on. He took some deep breaths and let them out slowly. He turned the knob and opened the door.
“Connie?” Brody said into the shadows. No answer. He flicked on the light switch, squinting against the sudden brightness. The bedroom was exactly as he had ordered it to be, as his Reba would have wanted it.
Brody stepped inside, opened the closet, looked under the bed, even looked out the window. He felt a little foolish looking for someone who obviously wasn’t there.
Connie had been dragged into the room by some dark figure, of that he was certain. The memory was fresh—and new—so unlike all his other memories. No, Connie wasn’t here. At least not this time. Not right now.
Something had happened to him following Reba’s death, but when and how were questions he couldn’t answer. Brody Quail felt as if everything had been constructed for him, and his only memories hung on his office wall. Felix and the two officers at the front door were only playing their parts.
But if that were true, everything he was would be a lie. Brody Quail, the fifty-two-year-old widower living in a big, empty house in Joshua, Maine, would be an ugly falsehood, a living tapestry of fabrications and deceit, forced to relive the news of his son’s death time and time again, while someone, somewhere, enjoyed watching his struggles with the gun and the booze.
It would stop now. Brody would never again step dutifully down the stairs to answer the door and listen to the officers give their scripted speech about his son. Never again would he go back upstairs to his office and hold a bottle in his hand, fighting the urge to take a drink. Never again would he reach into his drawer, place the gun into his mouth, and send a bullet into his skull.
Whoever had done this to him would pay, starting now.
Brody took the pistol from his pants and walked out of the bedroom and down the hallway to the stairs.
He could still picture Connie standing in the hallway and remember how he thought he was seeing his Reba again. He frowned, wondering if there even was a Reba in the first place. He didn’t want to consider the possibility, and he decided that, for now, he wouldn’t. His feelings for his deceased wife were strong, so very strong and real that he couldn’t believe she was nothing more than another fabrication.
He heard the officers knocking on the door again, patiently waiting for him to greet them so they could play their part. He would greet them, all right. For the last time.
Brody strode confidently to the front door, his pistol hanging at his side. He thumbed the hammer back as he approached. He grabbed the handle and opened the door.
They were standing side by side, their faces grim, actors ready to deliver their lines. He watched their eyes as he brought the pistol to bear, aiming it at the man closest to the door. There was no reaction from the first man as the gun boomed, the bullet striking him directly in the forehead a little above his left eye. The pistol bucked in Brody’s hand, and he controlled the recoil, bringing the weapon back down toward the other officer, who was standing completely still, his face gone slack.
Empty and emotionless.
Brody pulled the trigger again, and the bullet struck the other man just to the right of the bridge of his nose.
The gun wavered in Brody’s hand, and he took a step back.
This wasn’t right.
Both men were still standing, dead eyes staring past him, looking at nothing. Both had holes in their heads, clean entry wounds, nearly perfect circles where the bullets had hit their marks, but the aftermath of the shots wasn’t spread all over his front walk.
Both men, who had looked so normal just seconds before, now appeared as wax mannequins standing on wooden legs.
The fury Brody had felt when he opened the door rapidly vanished, replaced with a cold certainty that all he’d assumed was, in fact, correct. He raised the gun again and fired into their chests, two in the first man, one in the other. The gun bucked in his hand, again and again, until the hammer clicked on an empty cylinder. He opened the cylinder and reached into his pocket for another handful of cartridges. He loaded the gun again by feel alone, keeping his eyes locked on the two falsehoods standing silently before him, holes in their heads and chests. He snapped the cylinder closed again, pulled the hammer back, and aimed.
Behind the two men, though, the landscape had changed—it was no longer the early evening in Joshua. The terrain had become nothing more than a deep, dark expanse with no beginning or end, a swirling mass of shadows, spinning and cavorting like cloaked spirits.
“Why did you do that, sir?”
Felix stood close behind him.
Brody spun, placing the front sight post directly between Felix’s eyes. “I’m not playing your sick game anymore, Felix, or whatever your name is. Do you understand me? I’m done.”
“My name is Felix, sir. I’ve been your employee for years.”
“You and I both know that’s not true,” Brody said, his voice shaky as the throbbing in his head built in intensity.
“Sir, please. You’re tired. You need to rest. Please give me the gun,” Felix said, taking a step forward.
“Stay right where you are,” Brody commanded, tightening his pull on the trigger. “We’re going to have a little talk.”
“No, sir, we are not,” Felix said. “You’re going to give me the gun, then I’m going to bring you some dinner. Would you like to take it in your office, sir?”
dinner
With that one little word, Brody’s stomach clenched tightly, and every bit of energy seemed to drain away. He was lightheaded, weak, and insatiably hungry. Brody fought through it, along with the dull throbbing at the back of his skull.
“Last time, you tried to kill me, Felix,” Brody said. “I’m not giving you this gun.”
Brody expected a fight but instead watched as Felix dropped his arms to his side, the life disappearing from his eyes. All at once Felix was just as much a wax mannequin as the two officers standing at the front door.
Apparently, the game was over. There would be no fight for the gun as before.
Brody sensed motion at the top of the stairs, and he saw her.
“Brody?”
“Connie,” Brody replied, running up the stairs two at a time with all the strength he could muster. He was relieved to see her, as she was the only person he knew to be real in this crazy place, and he had thought he’d never see her again after she’d been dragged into the bedroom. As he reached the top of the stairs, he could see that she was in pain, tears streaming down her face. It hurts, he remembered. Before she disappears, it hurts. He had to talk to her, explain what he’d concluded was going on in this house, how they were both nothing more than players in someone’s sick, twisted game. She couldn’t go already, not now! “Is it happening?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice tight. “I don’t have much time.”
He helped her to the floor, held her in his arms, felt her body trembling.
trembling
Visions of a closet, a dark, confined space, flashed through his mind. A place where he had held her just like this, but she had been different then, much younger, smaller.
And so had he.
“Hold on, Connie. Please, don’t go yet.”
“Do you dream, Brody?” she asked, and he remembered her asking that question before.
“Dream?”
“Of other places, where you are you, but not you,” she said, her voice cracking with the effort.
He thought about the closet and nodded his head. “Yes, I think so. With you. You were there, too.”
“No, Brody,” she said, her body tightening against his, a slight moan escaping her lips. “Oh God, it’s happening!”
“Stay with me,” Brody said, holding on to her body as tightly as he could, even though it wouldn’t do any good.
“Do you dream of another place, where you are you, but everything else is different?”
“What have you seen, Connie?” Brody asked. “Please, tell me. Quickly.”
The Argus Deceit Page 17