by J. R. Brule
And he heard that voice again, the one that he knew belonged to the crazed man in front of him.
(get his neck)
Rudy wound up the phone and slammed it down on his attacker’s head. There was a dull thud, like smacking a watermelon, and the man’s eyes rolled to their whites while the dial tone beeped loudly.
Rudy slunk down against the wall into a sitting position, the cord
Did I always have this old phone?
stretching with him, and he watched as the room shrunk back to its normal size. The invasive
(hold the ques)
(nose like a lapel)
thoughts faded away, and he started to sob.
4:
RUDY HEARD THE FRONT door of his house unlock and open, causing his heart to jump into his throat.
What would my parents think of this man laying on the kitchen floor?
“Helllllllooooo!” his mother shouted, oblivious to the unconscious stranger inside her home.
Rudy panicked and did the first thing that came to mind. He blocked the kitchen doorframe, standing inside it with his arms spread and fingers around the edges.
(don’t ever stop the)
His mom put her keys on the table and flashed him a smile before heading upstairs. “Just going to change,” she said, and it was the best thing he ever heard. And unbeknownst to Rudy, her abilities were dampened by the hand of another Gifted. The hand of a man who’d been watching his young life.
Rudy had to get rid of his crazy neighbor right now. So he turned, nearly screaming when he saw only an empty kitchen floor. He looked under the table and in the other room, and didn’t see the baggie or spilled coffee grounds. He went to his dad’s office, the garage, and upstairs to check on his mother. His own room was empty, nothing in his closet or under the bed. When his mother went back downstairs, he searched her room as well.
The man was gone.
---
The next day (four days after Brian’s severed hand), Rudy went downstairs, following the smell of coffee. It was 9 a.m., and his father was at the kitchen table. He folded back the paper. “How you feeling?”
“Okay I guess. Hungry.” Rudy poured cereal. A moving truck was parked outside the adjacent home. A tall man with long blond hair carried stacks of boxes. “Someone moving in?”
His dad smiled. “Yep, new neighbor.”
(think he can hear m)
(norman, shut u)
“The principal called,” his dad said. “You’re allowed back to school on Monday.”
“Oh?” Rudy said. His heart rate sped up. He hadn’t told his dad about Brian yet. The backlash of withholding such important information might be brutal, to say the least. Rudy prepared himself for some yelling.
“I suggest not skipping your classes again.”
Rudy only nodded, though his insides frothed like a violent ocean maelstrom. Had the principal not relayed the event, either?
Rudy’s thoughts were cut short. He watched in stunned horror as a hole appeared in his father’s stomach, expanding as if drilled with a bit the size of a baseball. The edges smoldered, reminding Rudy of a smoking gun barrel. Through the hole, Rudy saw the wooden floor, where the loony neighbor’s body used to be.
His dad didn’t even seem to notice. Just went on reading the paper.
---
That night in bed, Rudy lay awake with the covers pulled up to his chin. They were cold . . . unjustifiably so . . . like his bed was nothing more than a slab of ice. Finding sleep impossible, he got up and headed for the bathroom.
The house was dark. He couldn’t see the stairs at the end of the hall, or the bathroom door. He ran his fingers over the smooth
(my, is that soft!)
wallpaper, groping for that nipple of a light switch, thinking he must have missed it, and found a door instead. It didn’t occur to him to think where that door had come from, but it wasn’t there before.
Inside was a bathroom just like his—nothing to raise suspicion. He turned on the faucet and stared at the running water. He just kept staring, hypnotized by the stream.
A reflection in the mirror caught his eye—a glint of something moving behind him.
Two nooses swayed like abandoned tire swings. He realized then the house wasn’t dark—almost everything was a pocked black and white, like old film, and only the nooses were flushed brown.
And the light was on—just not its usual yellow cast.
The walls filled with a hammering thump, like the bathroom was alive, like he was the pulmonary valve inside a throbbing household heart. His temples pounded with a metronomic beat.
Thud thud, thud thud.
Looking toward the doorway yielded the same effect, as when the man with the sandpaper face had him pinned down over the kitchen table. The shower stretched away infinitely, and each floor tile became its own super highway, again eliciting that Alice in Wonderland feeling of having chugged a shrinking elixir.
The only things that stayed the same were the pair of nooses, looking like two morbid eyes tacitly conveying a promise he could feel, a promise of the future. That feeling constricted the skin on the back of his neck, arousing the hairs there.
(not alone)
(you’re not al)
Tap, tap, tap, went the mirror, and he wondered oddly how a bird could get inside there.
Next thing he knew, he was still in bed with the sheets drawn up to his chin, and something outside was tapping on his window.
He got out of bed and went to look. On the sill, a pigeon pecked its beak against the glass. When it saw him, it cocked its head to show a glassy orange eye, and said:
Coo, Coo! Coo, Coo!
Though it sounded more like
KLOOM, KLOOM! KLOOM, KLOOM!
5:
HI, KID, CAME A man’s voice, from nowhere.
Rudy felt nowhere. It was all black—everything.
Who are you? Rudy said. His world was nebulous, nonexistent. Where are we?
Hold the questions.
Rudy looked down and saw he had no feet. In fact, he had no legs or any substance at all.
Sorry. I don’t understand where I am.
No ground supported him. Gravity and skies and earth weren’t tangible or perceivable here, wherever here was.
My name is Mr. Kloom.
From somewhere far away, Rudy heard what sounded like a bell ringing . . . from a distant boat bobbing on the waves of an ocean. I’ve heard that name before.
I know. I’ve spoken with you earlier.
And how strange it felt not having a body.
When did we speak?
Instead of asking, try and understand.
How?
. . .
Are you there? Rudy asked. It was a strange question, considering there was as clear as wood.
Yes. I’m here.
What do you want?
The response took a moment.
Listen. You know you’re different.
But wh—
I said listen.
Sorry. I’m not used to this place.
I want to help you. Do you want my help?
I don’t know. How would you help me?
I can teach you the Gift.
The what?
The Gift. You have the genes.
Rudy paused. I knew I was different.
Give me the okay.
What?
I won’t do it without your permission.
Do what? I just want to be clear.
Teach you. Just like this.
Um. I give you my permission.
Good.
Rudy expected something to happen, but nothing did. When do we start?
You’ll know.
How?
You listen.
Where are we, anyway?
. . .
6:
WAKING UP FROM THAT dream was strange . . . Rudy didn’t feel the least bit groggy. Five hours of sleep and he felt like he’d never been late to bed in his entire life. He
vaguely remembered talking with someone.
His dad yelled at him from downstairs, breaking his little trance. It was time for school. Though he didn’t want to go back, what choice did he have?
As expected, people stared at him in the halls and shuddered away from his presence. In one class, after taking his seat, a girl next to him got up and moved to another desk, like he had a contagious disease, the name of it on a sign that hung around his neck.
And worse, the adults always had a careful eye on him. As Rudy reached inside his bag for a pencil, Mr. Brown watched him, looking ready to scream BOMB!
It was all very strange, because no one ever mentioned the actual event. Brian was still out of school and minus a hand, but no one could say why they chose to exile him.
(will hate you)
(the students at school will)
Didn’t I hear that before? Did I expect it or predict I’d be hated?
If he predicted it, like some modern Nostradamus, that meant so much more, didn’t it? That meant all those interjected thoughts had meaning.
But the only way to know was by trial and error. Maybe it’d be a good idea to
(we’re here)
(get him tomorrow)
record what came to mind, to keep a diary. Already he was thinking about that hole inside his dad’s stomach and the nooses in the bathroom, and how he’d keep careful track of them showing up again.
God I hope those don’t come true.
He continued his day at school with everyone’s eyes on him.
---
Later that day, before his parents got home, he thought the TV might help clear the voices. But not even full volume could drown them out—the mouths onscreen only moved.
Glass shattered upstairs, a big wheelbarrow load.
He jumped and instinctively muted the TV, though it didn’t
(have they)
(get this done qui)
help.
Rudy waited five minutes before moving to the stairs, scaling every riser with the skill of a stalking panther, avoiding where he knew the wood would creak. At the top, he paused when something heavy crunched down onto the glass. He put his back against the wall and slid sideways down the length of it, stopping outside his room, where the sound came from. His breathing labored, he took a big gulp of air and swiveled his head to stare into the open crack between the door and the wall.
A man wearing thick black boots had one foot in his room, straddling the open window frame, and Rudy pulled his head back around in a panic.
Do I know him do I know him.
(*melodic whistling*)
Do something!
Rudy took preparatory breaths, amped himself up.
Then he punched back the door and stampeded inside, charging in with his chest puffed out.
No one was in the room. The window was undamaged. Before he had any time to think it through, the front door opened downstairs and his mother announced her arrival. Her coat buttons dragged against the stairway banister, tapp . . .
7:
. . . ING ALONG.
Rudy shot up in the passenger seat of a car he didn’t remember getting in, looking in horror out his window as a man rapped a ringed knuckle on the glass—a man in a suit, with a golden ponytail, holding a plate full of food.
Mr. Kloom, Rudy thought, and used the crank to roll the window down.
“Don’t be alarmed,” Mr. Kloom said. “We’re at the market. Gotta eat, don’t we?” He bit into a strip of bacon. “We made good time, eh? FUCK. Canadian vernacular is catching up quick, and we won’t even be there for two more days. Do you know how I know that? Are you hungry?”
Mr. Kloom held out the plate; on it were five pieces of bacon, two slices of cheddar cheese, the bottom portion of a half-eaten bagel, and a naked banana with finger marks indented in one side.
“How’d we get here?” Rudy asked.
“Fuel up, kid,” Mr. Kloom said, avoiding the question. “It’s going to be a great day of sales. Do you feel it? That current riding up the track of your spine? A salesman’s high, our greatest asset to success.”
“I’m sorry, sales?” Rudy said, reaching for the plate.
Whoa. My voice is deep.
While Mr. Kloom laughed, Rudy pulled down the sun visor, to examine himself in its little mirror. The sight made him almost choke on bacon.
Holy SHIT I’m old! I must be eighteen! Even my thoughts are pitched deeper.
This is fucking weird.
“This will seem weird for quite some time,” Mr. Kloom said. “But put your game face on, god DAMMIT. How can you make a sale when you can’t even navigate your own head?”
“Yes, Mr. Kloom,” Rudy said, feeling both marveled and afraid of what was happening.
Since when did I start using honorifics?
And since when do I even know what an honorific is?
Rudy stuffed the piece of bagel in his mouth, hoping more than ever it’d be that elixir from Alice’s land. That way, he could at least be sure of something.
“Are you ready?” Mr. Kloom asked.
“Where the hell are we?”
Mr. Kloom glowered at him. “We’re in Michigan, same as before. Try to understand before asking something like that. And now that you’re learning the trade, I want you to have this.” He stuck his hand through the open window. A silver necklace was draped over his thumb. “It’s for good luck. We all need something to believe in, don’t you agree?”
“I do.” Rudy took the necklace, inspected it—it was completely plain—and put it on.
“So long as you work for me, I don’t want you taking that off. Not when you shower, not when you sleep, not when you go to a fancy five-star dinner. That’s a joke, because here, we’re broke as hell. But if you take it off, you cease to be my student. Get it?”
“Yes, Mr. Kloom.”
“Good.” Mr. Kloom promptly raised his hands and clapp . . .
8:
. . . ED.
Outside of Rudy’s house, Billy Grey and Norman Thomas flinched inside Norman’s old Buick.
“The hell was that?” Billy asked.
“Sounded like someone . . . clapped,” Norman said.
Billy shrugged and went back to scribbling things down onto a creased slip of printer paper.
“Well?” Norm yelled, because some blond-haired fuck with headphones over his ears just started mowing the lawn across the road. “I don’t like that face you got on. Talk to me.”
“Projection won’t work.”
“The hell’s that?”
Billy sighed. “If you woulda just read the book, I swear to God.”
“Well, I didn’t.”
Billy slapped his pen down. “It’s a trick, an illusion. I made the kid see a fake me.”
“Yeah? How’d that work out?”
“Obviously not well.”
“So what’s the plan?”
To get you out of the car and drive far, far away, Billy thought.
“I heard that,” Norm said.
Billy folded the paper and tucked it into his pants pocket, pushing up against the seat to do so. “There’s a problem. His parents.”
“So? Just project their dead grandma or something. Lead them away.”
“They’re Gifted.”
Norman’s mouth clamped shut. “Shit. You sure?”
“Absolutely. Soon as his mother drove in, I had to disconnect. It was close, Norm. I felt her just about brush up against me.”
“Does she know we’re here?”
“Nah. Not yet.” Billy looked at Rudy’s house through his window. “But the boy saw me. That means he might say something. If he does, she’ll come looking. We’ll have to block off her access points.”
Norm shook his head. “She’d know if we did. Wouldn’t she?”
“Course she would. C’mon, Norm, you serious right now?”
“What the fuck, man, whad’you want?”
“Don’t cork it all up, just cover the scent. If the path
’s blocked, she’ll know someone’s here, and we’re found out. She can come in a little bit, but not all the way. Don’t let her get in all the way.”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re sayin.”
Billy sighed. A lifetime of experience just wasn’t enough for some people. “Just don’t block the way, all right? I’ll handle it.”
“Whatever you say,” Norm said. He turned on the radio, looked out his window, and tapped the country beat on his door.
Billy continued reading the book by Chad Stevenson. He never paid a penny for it—he’d found it lying around somewhere. Funny, because he’d have given everything he owned for it.
Norm looked over. “Jesus man, you brought that with you?”
“Course I did. How else are we gonna get the kid? We’ve never done this before. You wanna walk into that house cold?”
“Ain’t you afraid he’ll know you’re reading bout him?”
“No.”
“All’s I’m sayin is, if he’s so great, think how many he’s claimed.”
“So what?”
“So, he’s good at this shit. You really think he wants his secrets out?”
“Why the hell else would he write a book?”
Norman shook his head. “He could be coming for us right this minute.”
Billy’s heart jumped a beat too far. “Don’t even joke like that.”
“He’d probably kill you for that book,” Norman said, and laughed. “I say you deserve every piece of what’s comin.”
“When’d you get to be a philosophizer?”
“Common fuckin sense, man.”
Billy chuckled. A guy like Norm talking about common sense—this is where he’d ended up in life. Norm was a faithful friend, and a good one, but shouldn’t be trusted with anything more complicated than a recipe. No shame in it, everyone had their place. But for whatever reason, Norm thought himself something more, and that was a problem in any man, smart or otherwise.
They both watched as a car pull into the boy’s driveway.
“Who the hell’s that?” Norman asked.
Billy got out his binoculars. “It’s okay. Just his dad getting home from work.” He lowered the binoculars and said, “Norm, I think we’ve got to go for his mother.”
“Now you’re makin some sense.” A pause, then, “Let’s get this done. I’m jumpy over here.”