by Lee Doty
“No, I’m not.”
“Why?”
Ash’s eyes wandered over the dim room, probing into shadows, both trying to decipher and avoid whatever it was she felt. “It’s not enough anymore.”
“What’s not enough?”
“The Hallow. The league. The game.” She said, feeling tired. “What kind of person wants to pretend to do the things we do there?” her throat closed, leaving her speechless.
“But it’s all that’s left. If that’s not enough, what else is there?” He gestured around the room, “This? Ash, there’s nothing here… nothing!”
“We don’t hurt people here!” she said, instantly feeling stupid.
He laughed softly, his gentle smile sad. “We can’t even hurt ourselves here.” He picked up his fork and held it up like an object lesson. Then, when he had her attention, he drove it as hard as he could into his left forearm, which was resting on the table.
She stared, shocked, but neither of them flinched. Neither of their damaged nervous systems were sharp enough for even the most basic startle reflexes.
Crow’s sad smile widened and he showed her the wiseass brow again. “I’d say ‘ow’, but I’d be lying.” He said, releasing the fork, leaving it protruding nearly vertically from his wounded arm. A thin trickle of blood slipped away from the fork-forearm interface and made its way slowly toward the table.
“In the Hallow, that would have had consequences.” He said, ignoring the fork and staring into her eyes. But as hard as he looked, he could find none of the fire that passed between them in the Hallow. “Tell me this is the real world, Ash.”
“So, you’d prefer your forks to have more consequences.” Ash said, with a poorly repressed grin. She seemed to spend a moment resisting the urge, then reached out quickly and gave the handle of the fork a hard flick with her index finger. It gave a hard clink and moved a few degrees, but didn’t dislodge from Crow’s arm.
“Hey!” he said reaching for the fork defensively.
“…but not that consequence, it seems.” She laughed.
He’d lost the serious vibe he’d worked so hard to cultivate, Crow hung his head in frustration.
Frustrating humor; clean as the light of morning; present, hidden Ash.
He wanted to be angry, or at least indignant, but for all his efforts, he could only feel sorrow. He was losing her.
“Ash, you’re ruining my carefully prepared ‘empty shells’ nihilism speech.” he said, shaking his head. “Flicking my fork… so childish.”
“Childish?” she said, mocking. She picked up her fork. “So adults punctuate largely with utensils, do they? And I’m not even going to say ‘punctureate’, ‘cause you know how I hate puns.”
“Where’d I go wrong?” Crow muttered into his hands, fork protruding parallel to the tabletop halfway between elbow and wrist, “I was closing in on my big point, I did the self-mutilation, I had the ‘crazy eyes’ going…” the handle of the protruding fork wiggled as he shook his head in his hands.
“I think I was getting your point, but then all four of them got buried in your arm…” Ash couldn’t stop laughing, but then she didn’t really want to stop, so it was working out fine.
“But here, here we’re just empty shells… that’s poignant, right? Here we’re just waiting to die…” he looked up from his hands momentarily, “That’s true, you know… not to mention rhetorically effective.” He put his face back in his hands, “Q.E.D., right? You can’t give up the Hallow for some dank library; you can’t leave me alone… Hey!”
“Don’t worry, sir… I’ll have you sorted out in a couple of seconds.” The cleric set down the bloody fork he’d pulled from Crow’s arm and began dressing the wound against Crow’s best resistance. The cleric’s right hand flicked quickly to the opened medkit on the table several times to fetch or stow antibiotics or bandages, all the while holding Crow’s wounded arm motionless on the table under his left hand.
When the cleric finished half a minute later, he closed the kit and released Crow’s arm. “There.” he said cheerfully as Crow attempted to burn a hole through his head with evil staring. “I’ll bring you a clean fork.” the cleric said, turning to go, but then turned back, “…unless you’d prefer to just use your spoon. Perhaps that would be safer?”
Ash’s laughter gained intensity; she was pounding the table now. Crow gave her a fierce glance, which had the entirely wrong effect. “Ok, very funny.” he said, giving her the ‘you’ve-had-your-fun-now’ glare.
With considerable effort and many false starts Ash reined in the laughter and cleaned most of the spittle from her chin. They shared what might have been a pre-serious-discussion pause. The discussion might have been serious, but as Crow opened his mouth, Ash handed him her fork and said, “You were saying…”
The two men at the bar turned to stare at the pair of laughing idiots. The woman in the wheelchair looked uncomfortable for a few seconds before making her way to the door. Behind the bar, the cleric finished stowing the medkit and stepped deeper into the shadows near the wall, all the while staring with undeviating attention at Ash and Crow. His eyes moved between their faces as they laughed and talked, but his eyes always came to rest on Ash.
“I think we’re going to have a problem here…” he said seemingly to the air around him. A few moments passed, “But Phoenix is our best team… we lose one—especially her—we might have to retire them all.” Another pause, then he continued, “you know how these things go… No, but she’s the key. Anyone could see…”, then his head ticked seemingly involuntarily several times and he returned to his tasks as if nothing had transpired.
Across the room, Ash shouted “I don’t think you’re getting my point yet!” as she half-heartedly tried to stab Crow’s hands and he fought weakly to avoid her between peals of child-like laughter.
Menace
Chicago, 2020
They emerged from the muted darkness of the theater and the muted glitz of the retro Hollywood lobby expanded around them. The red, deeply patterned carpet stretched out like a tranquil, unknown sea, replete with popcorn and candy wrapper flotsam. The crowd was light, but the two women still tried to be discrete as they dabbed the tears from their eyes.
“Stupid movie!” Jo complained.
“Yeah… I didn’t see that end coming. Damnably sweet piece of crap’s makin’ me sob like a dumped coed.” Jackie agreed.
“You ever love someone that much?” Jo said, wiping her wet fingers on her sleeve then going back for more tears.
“You mean like dyin’-for-them bad?” Jackie thought for a second, “Nah. I mean I’ve loved two—no, three—guys, but nothin’ like that.”
“Too bad,” Jo said, opening the door to the parking structure’s stairwell, “I was kinda hoping it was always like that—love I mean—I don’t really have much data on this subject.”
Laughing, they descended the four levels to their car. Passing the last bend before the door to their level, Jo realized that she felt strange… maybe this is what normal feels like, she thought. Of course, she had no idea what normal might be, but she was with a friend, talking about a movie rather than just thinking about it, and she was having a desperately good time. She was almost completely unafraid, maybe even hopeful.
“…and I don’t care what you think—that dog was just adorable…” Jo halted in mid-sentence, halfway between stairwell and their level of the parking garage, both palms on the steel door that she’d just pushed open. A calm clarity settled over her like an old quilt, warm and familiar. What had just happened? She had no idea, but everything had just changed.
“Rat, I say! Little yappy dogs are by definition…Hey!” Jackie had been fumbling in her purse for her keys as she descended the final steps, so she stopped only when she collided with Jo’s motionless form in the doorway. It took her a few seconds to think anything more complex and less frustrated than “What?” but then she shook her head and just said it, “What?”
Jo’s eyes moved o
ver the scene, taking in the parking lot. There were few cars left at this time of night and no people in sight. The security camera on the ceiling glared down at them. There was an elevator bank visible on the far side of the garage, near where the ramp angled up to the next level. Her eyes searched over the cars and tried to penetrate the few visible shadows.
“What’cha doin’, Jo?” Jackie asked playfully suspicious. When Jo’s silence continued, she prompted again, “Are you often cowed by parking structures?”
“Shhhhh.” Jo hissed. What was wrong? Her senses sharpened then seemed to cloud again. She could feel the small hairs rising along her arms and at the nape of her neck, but it was a pleasant sensation, like a caress from a loving, terrible God.
The sharpening began again and the shadows lost their depth under her stare. Details began to emerge from the blur of her normal vision, stepping forward to be cataloged by her quickening mind. Air shifted around her lazily, she could feel the heat and moisture of her own breath sliding in and out so slowly.
Two overwhelming feelings blazed through both mind and heart: Danger and Peace. With a feeling like inspiration, she remembered from somewhere that these two were really just aspects of one glorious feeling: Alive.
But then it changed again. Like an invisible doctor administering a black and cloying sedative from somewhere inside her, the clarity gave way to the everyday murk she’d grown to expect, then deepened into a bone-weary fatigue, leaving her swooning. She wobbled on her feet, bracing herself on the doorframe. Shadows washed over her eyes momentarily, but then partially retreated when she blinked and shook her head to clear it. Her arms felt heavy, her legs clumsy, leaden. She slouched sideways, leaning into the support of the doorframe.
“Jo, you okay?” Jackie asked, concern coloring her voice. She put a hand on Jo’s shoulder, “Jo…”
Then, with her world almost spinning from the sudden fatigue, her eyes again fixed on the security camera and Jo’s conscious mind became aware of something she’d unconsciously known since the second she’d pushed the door open: the red light on the security camera was dark. Of course, that could be anything from a defective LED, to a malfunctioning security program, but there was something else—something more. Then she noticed: the short wire between camera and the ceiling was severed near the midpoint. This realization fueled a short partial recovery from her languor, but then the haze returned with renewed force and her eyes lost focus. Then Jackie’s cell phone let out an odd ring tone, it sounded almost medical, like monitoring equipment Jo would have expected to hear in the ER of a hospital. “Oh my G…” Jackie started breathlessly, then cut herself off. Jackie’s hand left Jo’s shoulder as she dug in her purse for her phone.
The feel of cool metal beneath her hands, the engrossing harmony of breath, a static that filled the world—floating. From somewhere distant, she heard tinny martial music playing, and the sound was as intensely familiar as it was achingly sad—it filled her with dread she didn’t understand.
Panic brought another brief rousing as she fought away from the music, but the hidden anesthesiologist reasserted himself and her knees buckled amid a crashing surf of numbness. She hit the ground, knees first, and her head bounced off the doorframe on its way to the concrete floor. “Poisoned.” Jo tried to say, but her lips didn’t move. In her mind, she saw a slow motion replay of the pimply teenager squirting butter onto her theater popcorn before the movie, but this time she felt revulsion instead of the giddy anticipation she’d felt at the time. Were there chunks in the butter? Had that guy washed his hands today? Did he feel lonely when everyone was enjoying the movie? What had she just been thinking?
An approaching presence: Jo wasn’t sure how she knew through all the layers of insulating fog, but some small sound combined with instinct told her that a predator was approaching. Like warm sunshine through chill morning mists, another small sound confirmed the danger and that warning began to dissipate the narcotic mists. Jo became aware of her hands, splayed out on the ground, the feel of cool concrete beneath her tingling fingers.
“Central!” Jackie shouted, standing above Jo, “I’ve got a situation, I need the medics here yesterday! Jo’s down, cause unknown…”
Jackie’s startled scream filled the air and Jo’s eyes fluttered open, but all she could see was the concrete floor. Quick footfalls, three quick impacts, flesh-on-flesh, pop-Pop-POP, then two impacts with the floor: the dull metallic clank of a dropped gun, then the composite crash of an unconscious or possibly dead body. Black thoroughly polished shoes before her half-closed eyes. Surprise brought another small rush of energy and she opened her eyes fully. The stranger’s shoes were inexpensive formal wear, the kind of thing you wore to a job where you had to dress respectably but not stylishly. They weren’t rugged enough to be worn by an operator, they weren’t stylish enough to be worn by a lawyer, but they had the comfortably stout aesthetic that somehow said DMV to Jo. The stranger’s pants and socks were as black as the shoes, with a crisp crease at the shin… so not DMV… manager at an Orbison-themed auto dealership?
Behind the stranger’s feet, Jackie’s crumpled body lay, blood flowing across her face from ruptured vessels in her nose. Between the stranger’s feet, not far from Jackie’s hand, was a small, sleek, palm-sized pistol. From nowhere, the categorization entered her mind, as if she were reading from an equipment manifest: “Smith and Wesson M&P Shield, 9mm subcompact. Available, but not recommended for duty, due to magazine size and unnecessary external safety.”
The sight of her friend, hurt or dead, gave Jo another brief rousing, so she was able to feel the rough hands pushing her over onto her back. Her glassy and shivering eyes showed her the stranger’s silhouette against a backdrop of the garage lights above. Though he was backlit and her vision was still blurred, it appeared that the rest of his clothes belonged to the same all-black basic formalwear theme. Shirt, jacket and overcoat, all a basic black. So, this is what a Sears assassin looks like, Jo thought.
The stranger knelt above Jo, a hand reaching out to her neck. Jo tried to flinch away, but the phantom anesthesiologist was again at work and she remained still. The medical-sounding alarm sounded again and the stranger’s head snapped to Jackie. He retrieved her purse and searched it with practiced efficiency. He dropped the purse, holding a small device in his hands… it looked like a tablet in that it was about the right size and had a touch screen the stranger was now using to silence the alarm. It didn’t look like a normal tablet in that it was thick… less than an inch thick, but maybe five times as thick as Jo’s tablet. It had a chunky utilitarian look of hiking or military equipment, rather than the sleek aesthetic that dominated consumer electronics. The stranger spent a moment more prodding the tablet, from time to time looking from it to Jo.
He knelt again at Jo’s side as she lay, helpless on the concrete floor. He leaned in and pulled the left side of Jo’s shirt collar away from her neck and seemed to examine the area, tracing across her collarbone with one finger while he regarded the tablet from Jackie’s purse. Finally, the priest dropped the tablet into one of his jacket pockets and again regarded Jo, seemingly lost in thought.
As he knelt beside her, Jo got a better look at his head and shoulders, though his face was still masked in a shadowy blur. She could clearly see the contrasting white of his collar. So, she thought, not a Sears assassin, a priest. A kickass priest.
Of course.
Suddenly, her dream returned to her, seemingly springing upon her from the dim grey mists that filled her eyes and mind—kneeling before the terrifying priest with no face as he stood at the altar holding his magical hourglass. This priest seemed to be in everyday clothes, and not the flowing white vestments from her dream, still…
She heard the familiar scraping snap/click of a lock blade knife locking open. Sleek and sinister in Jo’s distorting vision, the small blade came up between them, partially occluding the white of the priest’s collar. On the back of the hand holding the knife, an old, ugly scar crawled a
cross the knuckles of all four fingers. Jo’s eyes widened in surprise, but not from the approaching knife… she knew that scar, and not from the shower… but from where? Suddenly she was more curious than afraid as the priest bent over her and his knife moved toward her throat.
The stranger’s left hand opened the collar of her shirt almost gently, “beautiful ashes.” He might have said, his voice looping and echoing through Jo’s unreliable senses. “
The blade moved forward and she was drowning in darkness just thin enough for her to feel the blade as it parted flesh and slipped below her left collarbone.
Then the cold, bright tip of that knife was the only thing in the world. The pain of its movement the only sense she had left. Before her mind’s eye, she could see the bloody trail stretching out behind her through the snow… rough hands pulling her into the shadows at the side of the faraway street. One of those rough hands is slicked with blood, the glove filleted open across all four knuckles. She can see stipples of white bone beneath the blood and leather. There is a whiplash of déjà vu, a long tightening pull of panicked recognition, followed by a deep and abiding peace. Distant gunfire and the sound of someone pleading close at hand mixed, memory and reality twisting and melding in a strangely intimate dance that soon sputtered into blackness.
Ghosts
Chicago, 2119
The ancient train clattered and clanked to a stop at the elevated station in front of the large gaudy structure of the Chicago public library. Like everything else here, it had seen better days and it had seen them so long ago that it had likely forgotten them. The structure itself was large and square with an odd rim of green baroque ornamentation, gargoyles and all, around the top. It had always reminded Crow of the deserted warehouse down the block from his apartment, only with large cathedral windows and the pretentious green façade around the top, like an ornate green crown on the head of a pig. It was as if the warehouse architect had been hired to design the library, but his first, more warehousey, design had been rejected, so he’d had to scramble to add some “class” to the structure at the last minute. Thus, the green gargoyle hat.