The Widening Gyre

by Chuck Grossart

  Peyton nodded, and took another sip of her tea. She had at least stopped shaking, and more of her normal color had returned to her face.

  “Are you feeling better?” Justine asked.

  “Now that I’m home, it all seems like a bad dream. But I really did see something, Justine.”

  “Then let’s start from the beginning. Tell me what you saw.”

  A loud thump sounded through the house, and they both jumped.

  “What the hell?” Justine exclaimed, whipping her head toward the front window. “What the heck was that?” At first, she thought someone had pounded on the door, but as she approached the front of the house, she could see a small smear on the window glass.

  Something red.

  She looked at it closely, peering through the glass. It looked like—

  “Is that blood?” Peyton asked.

  Justine looked at the front porch, and couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. She opened the front door.

  Lying on the porch directly below the window was a large black bird. “Jeez, it flew right into the window,” Justine said.

  They both stepped outside. The rain had cooled the air considerably, and they both hugged themselves against the chill.

  The bird lay on its back, wings spread open as if in flight. Its head hung at an odd angle, and a small drop of blood clung to its beak. It was big, much larger than a common grackle. More like a raven.

  “Is it dead?” Peyton asked.

  “Looks like it broke its neck,” Justine answered. “Flew smack-dab into the window.” She knelt down to take a closer look. Its chest wasn’t moving, and she gently touched it with the tip of her finger, and immediately pulled her hand back.

  It was cold. Icy cold.

  “What’s wrong?” Peyton asked.

  Justine looked at the bird’s head, and couldn’t look away from its eye. Small and black, wide open, a round shadow staring right at her.

  Seeing.

  “It’s—it’s dead, all right. Poor thing.” But it wasn’t a poor thing. She wanted to get rid of it, right now. Grab a shovel and scoop it into the trash can out back. And maybe give it a good smack with the blade just to make sure. Close that eye for good.

  “Justine?”

  She jumped at the feel of Peyton’s hand on her shoulder.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, honey,” Justine said. She stood and rubbed her fingertip against her jeans, fighting the urge to run inside and wash her hands. “I’ll get the shovel.”

  “Are we going to bury it?” Peyton asked.

  Justine wanted to take the shovel blade and separate the head from the body, pour lighter fluid on it, and burn the damn thing . . . but it was only a bird, right? It wasn’t the first time she’d seen a bird fly into a window, but the body felt as if it had already been dead for hours. “I’ll take it out back and leave it by the field. The

  eye is staring dead eye is staring at me dead eye is

  coyotes can take care of it.”

  Justine did leave the bird beside the field, at the edge of the corn, just as she said she would. As she walked back to the house, she knew it wouldn’t be there in the morning. The scavengers would take it. Tear it to bits. But she wasn’t about to turn around. She was afraid it might just get up, its head lolling sickly to one side, and fly away.

  She couldn’t explain why its body had felt so cold, so quickly, nor could she fathom why she felt so unclean after touching it. And it had hit the window so hard.

  Like it was trying to break through, and get inside.

  She forced herself to turn around, to prove to herself that her mind was only playing tricks.

  The bird’s body was there, right where she left it.

  It’s just a bird, for cripes’ sake.

  The night animals would take it away.

  32

  Taggart and Mauger sat across from Zach Regan and his lawyer. Taggart didn’t like what he was about to say. “Your client is released.”

  Zach’s lawyer opened his mouth to speak, but Taggart cut him off.

  “However, since he’s still a person of interest in this case, I strongly suggest he remain in the state and available for further questioning.”

  “I’m not going anywhere, Detective,” Zach said. “And I’ll help, any way I can. I want to know what happened just as badly as you do.”

  “You’re free to go, Mr. Regan.” Taggart fixed Zach in a vise-like gaze. “We’ll be in touch.”

  Zach didn’t look away, but said nothing as he and his lawyer left the room. The door clicked shut.

  “Jack, I don’t understand this one at all,” Taggart said, running his fingers through his hair. “He was in there with her for thirty minutes, and she’s dead two hours later. What happened to make him run out of there like that?” He pulled a piece of paper out of the folder in front of him. “And this. I don’t even know where to start.”

  Mauger huffed, and shook his head. “Unless Bannock crawled out of his grave, drove to Omaha and killed Rakel Anders, then crawled back into his coffin, I’d say we’re back at square one. This whole thing is impossible, but evidence is evidence, right? The dental records were a perfect match.”

  “Right. Evidence is evidence. But this fucking stinks.” Taggart slammed the folder shut in front of him.

  “Jim, maybe there’s more to this.”

  Taggart sighed. “At this point, Jack, I’m all ears.”

  “You know the old saying, ‘Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth’? Sherlock Holmes said that.”

  “I thought it was Arthur Conan Doyle. Or Spock.”

  “Whatever. We just haven’t gotten to the truth part yet. This kid didn’t kill Rakel Anders. But there’s something else he’s not telling us. He may not even know what it is, but it’s there.”

  “Okay, let’s say you’re right. He was there, he didn’t kill her, and he can’t remember what happened. Somewhere in his skull is a little tidbit of info that’ll explain how the prints from a dead man ended up at our crime scene. How do you suggest we drag it out of him? Truth serum? Hypnosis?” Taggart frowned as soon as he saw the smile spread across his partner’s face.

  “I’ll be damned,” Mauger said. “You are a lot smarter than you look.”

  *

  Vic Davol unlocked his hotel room door and stepped inside.

  He grabbed a couple of cans of cheap beer from the fridge—another benefit of being in a college town—and sat down to watch TV. As he reached for the remote, Vic noticed how cold the room was. He stood to turn the thermostat up a couple of notches, and instantly froze when he heard a voice behind him.

  “It’s not very polite to watch television when you have company.”

  Vic turned, smoothly drawing the pistol he kept tucked in his waistband. Closing his left eye, he fixed the front sight on the man’s head. A fly buzzed by his ear, but he didn’t notice.

  Before him stood a bedraggled man wearing an old, torn overcoat, grimy pants, and a tattered stocking cap covering his filthy, stringy hair.

  “Who the hell are you?” Vic asked, instantly furious with himself for being careless enough to let a bum break into his room. It was time to hit the road again. He was getting complacent.

  The man spoke. “You know who I am, Vic.”

  He would kill this man, there was no doubt about that, but first he needed answers. “All right, genius, so you know who I am. Congratulations. Now you’re going to tell me how you got in here.”

  “I’m not here to answer your pathetic questions.”

  Vic took a step forward and centered the sights directly between the man’s eyes. “You will, or I’ll blow your head off.”

  “That wouldn’t be very smart, Vic,” the man said, smiling. His teeth were yellow, black near the gums. “I came here so we could have a little heart-to-heart.”

  “Answer me,” Vic said. He couldn’t believe how smug the bum was acting, especia
lly with a gun pointed at his head. “Who are you, and how do you know my name?”

  The bum just kept smiling. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Fine. Don’t want to answer? Then you’re a dead man.” Vic pulled the trigger.

  The stocking cap, and a flap of scalp, flew down the hall. Not a clean shot, but good enough. The man dropped to the floor like a pile of rags.

  Vic tucked the gun back into his pants, and then hurriedly grabbed a spray bottle full of bleach. Fingerprints were first. Erasing his prints was a daily ritual for Vic, just in case he had to leave suddenly. Like now. He kept track of everything he touched, and knew exactly what to clean. The gunshot hadn’t been too loud—it was a small-caliber weapon, a .32 semiauto—but he still had to hurry just in case someone heard the shot and, deciding it wasn’t a car backfiring, called the cops.

  He dropped the spray bottle and grabbed his pistol when he heard the voice again.

  “There’s no need to hurry, Vic. The adjacent rooms are vacant. Nobody heard a thing.”

  Vic spun around, his eyes wide with disbelief.

  The man stood there, staring at Vic, smiling. A gleaming white patch of bone shone on top of his head, the scalp that’d once covered it lying on the floor down the hall next to the man’s stocking cap. The head wound was bleeding profusely, bathing the grimy face with blood.

  For a second, Vic was dumbfounded. But only for a second. “Okay, superman, if nobody heard a thing, then nobody will hear this either.” Vic pulled the trigger in rapid succession, bam bam bam, quickly emptying the small magazine.

  The bullets tore into the man’s chest, his body violently twitching with each hammering impact. He fell backward, arms and legs flailing, landing in the hallway with a dull thud. Vic quickly replaced the spent magazine with a full one from his pants pocket. His ears were ringing.

  Breathing hard, he stood over the motionless body and delivered the coup de grace, firing a single shot right between the man’s eyes. The body twitched as the bullet struck home. A wisp of smoke rose from the small entry wound.

  “Try getting up now, asshole.”

  Vic hurriedly resumed his cleaning.

  He sprayed the cleaner and wiped down the faucet, the refrigerator handle, and the stove knobs. He opened the fridge door, and quickly wiped the items he’d touched. As he closed the fridge, he heard a shuffling noise.

  Like a person getting up from the floor.

  “Nice shooting there, Tex. Are you finished yet?”

  Vic’s blood suddenly ran cold, his heart furiously pumping icy liquid through his veins. The man was dead. He was dead! He’d shot him at least ten times—even put a bullet in his brain—he couldn’t be alive! Vic slowly turned, and saw what just couldn’t be.

  The man was there, standing in the hallway, and smiling a bloody smile. Riddled with bullets, but somehow alive. Impossibly alive.

  “What—what are you?” Vic stammered, his hands shaking as he reached for his gun. As he brought his weapon to bear, Vic watched, perplexed, as the man casually waved his arm.

  As if grabbed by an unseen hand, Vic’s gun was wrenched from his grasp and flung across the room, smashing into the wall and falling to the floor amid a cloud of dusty, dry wall fragments. It bounced once on the thin carpet before coming to rest five feet away from where Vic stood, his eyes wide with shock.

  “I’m not prone to doing parlor tricks like that, but you’ve given me no choice,” the man said, laughing softly and shaking his head. He shuffled over to the couch, leaving a trail of blood behind him, his shabby pants painting the floor like a cheap brush. As he sat down, he said, “Now do I have your full attention, Vic?”

  Vic stood frozen in place, suddenly unable to move, unable to speak. This can’t be, he thought. This has got to be some sort of dream!

  “No, it’s not a dream,” the man said. “This is about as real as it gets.”

  Vic’s whole body began to tremble. “You know what I’m thinking?” he said, surprised at the sound of his own voice—small, and scared.

  The man stared at him with rheumy, blood-soaked eyes. “I know everything about you, Vic. As a matter of fact, I’m the one reason why you’re still alive and kicking.”

  With the sudden realization that he wasn’t having a bad dream, Vic asked the only question that made sense. “Who are you?” His voice was trembling like a frightened child.

  “Well, that’s the ten-fucking-thousand-dollar question, isn’t it!” The man laughed, spraying small drops of congealed blood from his lips. “I have many names.”

  Vic couldn’t speak. Mainly because he’d stopped breathing.

  “At this particular moment, I’m a poor, downtrodden human being who goes by the name of Floyd Hendrickson. No address, no family, no friends, no money, and no hope. He’s missing half his head now, too, thanks to you. The poor slob.”

  Vic stood silently, stunned.

  “Lost for words? Can’t say as I blame you. Men stronger than you have been rendered speechless once I’ve revealed myself to them.”

  Revealed himself? Vic felt as if the temperature in the room had dropped forty degrees. “What are you?”

  Blood from the head wound trickled into the man’s mouth, covering his teeth with a pinkish film. “I’m a collector, Vic. I search for special people who want to do special things. Like you.”

  No. This isn’t real. It’s just a dream. Just a dream. It can’t be real. Vic repeated the mantra in his head, trying to convince himself that none of this was actually happening. He must be having some sort of nightmare. Maybe an acid flashback.

  “Not real? Oh, this is very real.” The man gestured toward the television. “Turn on your TV. Channel 47.”

  Vic put his palms on his temples, holding his head as if to keep the man out of his thoughts.

  “You heard me, channel 47. Now.”

  Vic kept his eyes locked on the man on the couch as he fumbled for the remote, turning away for just a moment to switch the TV to channel 47, a twenty-four-hour cable news network. A female correspondent was reporting on the rising costs of air travel, with an airport terminal as a backdrop for her story. The roar of a jet taking off rumbled in the background.

  “Good boy,” the man said. “Now, watch for the plane coming in for a landing. Behind her.”

  In the corner of the screen, Vic could see the airplane behind the reporter, descending, its landing gear down.

  “Are you ready to see something cool, Vic? I think the left engine will fall off . . . now.”

  Vic watched in horror as the jet’s left engine inexplicably tore away from its mount, trailing a stream of fiery fuel as it fell. The left wing was instantly engulfed in flame. The cameraman swung his lens away from the reporter and focused on the flaming airliner, suddenly aware of the drama unfolding in the corner of his viewfinder.

  “Yes,” the man hissed, satisfied with his handiwork. “And for my next trick, the other engine now.”

  Vic couldn’t believe his eyes as the remaining engine sickeningly dropped from the right wing. A huge, fiery plume of ignited fuel erupted behind the stricken jetliner.

  The doomed 767 wallowed through the air for a second, and then plowed into the airport terminal, disappearing in a massive cloud of fiery debris as it—and the terminal building—exploded.

  The TV snapped off.

  A black screen.

  The room was silent, except for Vic’s heartbeat, and the buzz of flies. There were a lot of them now.

  Vic stood motionless, completely in shock from what he’d seen. He was terrified of the man—of the thing—sitting across from him, but was amazed by the display of absolute power he’d just witnessed.

  “I don’t do things like that very often, but the rules of the little game I play allow for it once in a while,” the man said. “Since you’ve been such a doubting Thomas, now seemed as good a time as any, don’t you think?”

  Vic hung his head. His hands were shaking. He knew he was in the presence of evi
l. Absolute evil. Nothing else could explain what he’d just experienced.

  “Now, let’s talk about what you’re going to do for me.”

  *

  Twenty minutes later, Vic was leaving Lincoln, most of his belongings hurriedly thrown in the backseat of his car. Glancing in his rearview mirror, he saw thick black smoke pouring from the window of his hotel room. He had his orders.

  By the time he’d traveled ten miles east on I-80, the hotel was completely engulfed in flames.

  Its usefulness now spent, the bullet-riddled body of a homeless man was quickly reduced to ash in the unnaturally intense flames, its abductor gone to tackle more pressing matters.

  The Traveler had sent Vic on his way, sliding his personal chess piece across the board like a grand master, the endgame clearly in sight.

  Checkmate, though, was still a move, or two, away.

  33

  It was getting dark, and Peyton watched Justine walk around the house turning on lights, checking the doors to make sure they were locked. She’d come to learn it was her aunt’s normal routine at night, but tonight she seemed a little too nervous about it, if that was the right word.

  After the bird had slammed into the front window, Justine’s demeanor had changed. Her mouth was drawn into a tight, thin line, and she’d washed her hands numerous times.

  Peyton felt a little guilty for dumping this all on her while Rick was gone—away on his annual fishing trip to the Bahamas with some old college buddies—and Justine was shouldering this alone. Maybe that was why she was acting differently, but Peyton wasn’t sure.

  “Are you okay, Justine?” Peyton asked.

  Justine sat down on the couch next to her. “I’m fine. I can’t help but keep thinking there was a ghost in this house—I’ve heard of people seeing ghosts before, but never speaking to them.”

  “It really happened, Justine,” Peyton said, feeling a slight pang of panic that Justine might have changed her mind.