Kings of Infinite Space: A Novel

by James Hynes

  “What do you mean, give her up?” Walk away, Paul told himself, but there he stood, waiting.

  “Do you love her?” Colonel had said with a wicked smile, and Paul had stalked away at last, with a dismissive gesture.

  “You just answered my question,” Colonel had called after him.

  “Oh, you know,” Callie was saying now. “Like I was the mail girl or something.”

  “Want me to beat him up for you?” Do you love her? Colonel had said. Paul tightened his arms around Callie.

  “Wouldja?” She tilted her face so that he could see her eyes. “You never answered my question.”

  “What question?”

  “Why do you sit with them? Are you part of the club now or what?”

  Christ, thought Paul. Was he part of the club? He was still convinced that nothing unusual had happened on Friday night or Saturday morning, that he had been drunk and insensible for much of those twenty-four hours. And yet, when he had arrived at work every morning these past few days, the RFP had been waiting for him on his desktop, each of Rick’s changes from the previous day already entered into the document. All Paul had to do was . . . nothing. Paul had nothing to do. Colonel had winked at him at lunch one day—which day?—and said, “What are you going to do with all that free time, Professor?” He had a dim, drunken memory of someone—J.J. or Bob Wier or Colonel himself—asking him, “Do you know the story of the shoemaker and the elves?” Or, Paul wondered during his break, as he turned the pages of Seven Science Fiction Novels of H. G. Wells without reading them, was it more like the Eloi and the Morlocks? And if we are Eloi—Colonel and J.J. and Bob Wier and me—then what do the Morlocks want from us? They do our work, but what do they want in return?

  “Paul? You fadin’ on me again?”

  Paul sighed. “The first day I sat with him this week,” he said, to the crown of Callie’s head, “Colonel said to me, ‘Welcome to the good life, Professor.’ ”

  Callie looked up at him again. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “The obvious, I guess,” Paul said. “I’ve got a permanent job and a salary and a dental plan. A better ID badge. Web access. The American Dream.”

  “It’s more than a lot of people got,” Callie said. He could feel her tense up against him.

  “I’m not complaining, Callie, truly I’m not.” And why should I? he thought. It’s better than what I had before.

  “It’s not like you’re better than anybody else,” she said.

  She might as well have slipped a shiv between his ribs. He lifted his arm away from her. “Olivia Haddock told me the same thing,” he said.

  Callie sat up with her back to Paul, her cheekbone and breast limned by the silvery light from the TV. “Sorry.” She glanced back at him. “It’s just . . .”

  “It’s just what?” Paul said icily.

  Callie spoke to the TV screen, hunched over in bed. “Well, ever since I met you, all you done is . . . complain about how far you’ve fallen, and now when things are looking up, when you’re making a little progress, you seem . . .”

  “You were going to say ‘whine’ just now, weren’t you?” Paul’s fear and anger were contending in equal measure just now; the returning memory of Saturday morning was scaring the bejesus out of him. The image of Olivia Haddock’s last stand had popped up uncomfortably a number of times during the week: while he was drowsing before his monitor, surfing the Web, or in between forkfuls of enchilada at lunch with Colonel, or even when he was tumbling happily in bed with Callie. No matter what he was doing, he could see behind his eyeballs Olivia’s legs flailing in the air; the pale hand descending from the gap in the ceiling to slap him; the fish-eyed gaze of Boy G.

  “Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound like the Red Queen,” Callie said, chopping the air with her hand, “but why can’t you be happy with what you got? Why can’t you be happy with . . .”

  “The Red Queen?” Paul laughed. “Jesus, where’d you come up with that?”

  “It’s from—”

  “I know what it’s from,” he said. “How do you know what it’s from?”

  Callie whirled on him in bed, looming over him with her finger inches from his nose. “Don’t you dare condescend to me,” she said. “Don’t you dare.”

  Paul started to get aroused. “We all like a ride on a frisky young colt,” Colonel had said. “Do you love her?” He smiled and slid his hand around her hip to the small of her back, and he tried to work his thigh between her legs, but Callie pushed herself away from him. She bounded awkwardly off the bed and stumbled through the clothes on the floor. She crossed her arm over her breasts and clutched her shoulder, and she stooped to pick through the limp jeans and underwear.

  “Oh, c’mon,” said Paul, pulling the sheet over his tumescent lap. “Aren’t we going to work this out?”

  “I ain’t in the mood for ‘working it out.’ ” Callie gestured a pair of quotation marks in the air, without looking at Paul.

  “Callie, I’m sorry.” Paul scootched to the edge of the bed and tried to catch her eye. “I’m being a jerk.”

  Callie tugged on her panties and then her jeans. All Paul heard from her was the angry hiss of her breath. She stooped again for her shirt.

  Paul mouthed a silent fuck and flopped back on the bed. On the TV screen the Born Free lions sprawled across a rock in the African sun, their fat tongues lolling between their enormous canines. On top of the TV Charlotte sprawled in exactly the same attitude, her front paws pushed forward, her head sunk between them, eyes half open. Her back legs were splayed off the edge of the set, and her tail strobed slowly back and forth across the screen. Paul glanced at Callie to see if she had noticed, but she was buttoning her shirt with her back to him. Paul let his head drop onto the pillow, and he watched the TV’s light flicker across the ceiling.

  “Callie,” he said, “without you . . .”

  She looked at him over her shoulder. “Without me, what?” she said.

  “Without you . . . ,” Paul began. He had no idea how to finish the sentence.

  Callie turned and stooped for her sandals, dangling them by their straps, and to Paul’s surprise she dropped to her knees next to the bed. She set the sandals neatly to one side, and she leaned over Paul, her hand lightly on the sheet over his chest.

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  “Okay,” murmured Paul, and he pushed himself up to kiss her. But she pushed him back.

  “That’s not what I mean.” Her eyes were clear, and she watched him calmly. “I mean, let’s go. Let’s git. Let’s get out of this town and not come back.”

  “What?” Paul said.

  She met his gaze with her own; wherever he tried to look, she was looking back at him. “You hate Texas, you hate the heat, you hate your job, you hate the folks you work with.”

  “Yeah, but . . . ,” breathed Paul. All his muscles were pulling tight under the sheet. His stomach was clenching.

  “Well, me too, cowboy.” Her hand was warm and firm against his chest. “Don’t let it go to your head, ’cause it ain’t saying much, but you’re the best thing to happen to me in this whole goddamn state.”

  “Really?” said Paul.

  “There’s nothing in this shitty little apartment that’s yours, ‘cept your clothes, right? So let’s toss ’em in my truck and take off. We could be in Mexico by sunup.”

  “Mexico?” He felt his stomach clench.

  “Or wherever. We could be in California the day after tomorrow.”

  Finally Paul managed to lift himself on his elbows. Her hand pressed lightly on his chest. “Are you serious?” he said.

  “Serious as a heart attack, lover.” She slid her hand over his shoulder and curled her fingers around the back of his neck. “I followed one boy to Tulsa, and another boy here, but I never asked a boy to follow me before.”

  “Wow,” said Paul.

  Callie moved her face close to his, her eyes half shut. “C’mon, Paul,” she breathed. “Let’s. Ju
st. Go.”

  She kissed him very tenderly, and Paul stopped breathing. He could feel his blood pulsing in his lips. Callie pulled away, and he couldn’t help himself: He turned his gaze away from hers and looked down the bed at black-eyed Charlotte on top of the TV, her tail swishing metronomically across the screen. Callie half turned to see what he was looking at, but caught herself. She pushed back from the bed and stood; she stubbed her feet into her sandals.

  “She ain’t there, Paul,” she said quietly, as if to a sleepless child.

  “Yes she is,” said Paul, unable to take his eyes off the cat. “Turn around and look.”

  “I don’t have to. She ain’t there.” Callie bent over the bed and kissed Paul on the forehead. “She’s in here.” Then she turned and crossed to the door, swinging her hips.

  “Callie,” Paul said.

  She hesitated with the door half open, but she didn’t look back.

  “See ya,” she said, and then she was gone.

  Paul lay on his elbows, gasping. He could still feel the imprint of her kiss on his forehead and on his lips. On top of the TV Charlotte split her flat head in a vast, black, jagged yawn.

  “Fucking bitch!” Paul shouted, and he flung his pillow at her. She vanished and the pillow swept the jerry-rigged rabbit ears off the set and onto the floor; Born Free vanished in a blizzard of static. Outside, Paul heard the starting grumble of Callie’s truck, heard the whine of reverse gear, heard the rattle of the drainage grate in the middle of the parking lot as Callie backed over it. Paul propelled himself from the bed towards the door, tangled his legs in the sheets, and fell to his knees. Snarling in frustration he stripped the sheet away and lunged for the door. He wrenched it open and stood there, breathless and naked and semi-aroused, and saw only his battered Colt and the dusty wrecks of his neighbors’ ancient automobiles and, printed in silhouette against a yellow doorway, a single, slouching Snopes dangling a beer at his hip. Callie was gone, and Paul could only hear the rising gulp of her truck, climbing through its gears, away from him. Paul looked down at himself, and he stepped back and slammed his door.

  “Paul?” said a voice behind him, and Paul started violently. He whirled and flattened his back against the inside of his apartment door.

  Bob Wier stood rubbing his hands in the middle of Paul’s room, while behind him a couple of pale homeless guys in white shirts and ties were peeking out of Paul’s bathroom. The lower half of another guy hung from a gap in the suspended ceiling over Paul’s bed, his shirt pulled tight over his soft torso. He dropped to the bed, landing on his feet and making the springs twang, and as he bounced he adjusted his glasses. The glare in his lenses from the TV obscured his eyes.

  Bob Wier inclined his head solicitously towards Paul. “Is this a bad time?” he said.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIS ISN’T HAPPENING, Paul told himself. This is a dream.

  “We have to hurry,” said Bob Wier nervously, as the pale men hovered around Paul, handing him his shorts, his trousers, his shirt. “You don’t want to be late.”

  One bloodless pair of hands lifted his shirt from behind so that Paul could slip his arms through the sleeves, while another pair of hands worked the buttons. “Late for what?” said Paul.

  But Bob Wier wasn’t listening. He had cracked Paul’s front door and was peering watchfully into the parking lot. Through the door Paul heard the distant rumble of late-night traffic on the interstate.

  “What’s going on?” asked Paul numbly. He felt sapped, drained, which only served to convince him further that this wasn’t really happening, that someone hadn’t just tugged up his trousers and zipped his fly and buckled his belt, that someone else hadn’t just lifted his right foot, and then the left, to put on his sandals.

  “Let’s go,” Bob Wier said, and he slipped out the door. Paul felt the soft grip of several pairs of hands urging him out into the hot night.

  The parking lot of the Angry Loner Motel was as still as Paul had ever seen it. No one stood along the balconies; no open doorway threw a wedge of yellow light onto the pavement; not one shabby curtain twitched. Even Mrs. Prettyman’s windows were dark. Apart from the distant roar of the highway, the only sound was the soft scrape of feet against the asphalt and Paul’s own shallow breathing. Bob Wier wrung his hands again near the storm drain at the center of the lot, while another pair of pale men in shirt and tie and glasses hovered near him. How many of these guys are there? Paul wondered, and he tried to glance over his shoulder at the ghostly men hustling him across the asphalt, but they only pushed harder, making him dash along on his toes.

  “Hurry,” whispered Bob Wier, nervously scanning the balconies on either side, and the two pale men next to him stooped and hauled up the drainage grate without a sound.

  “Wait a minute,” said Paul, and he locked his knees, scrabbling at the asphalt with the heels of his sandals. “What the—”

  But the hands lifted him bodily into the air and lowered him into the wide drain, where another pair of hands reached up for Paul’s ankles. He pedaled his legs madly, for all the world like Olivia Haddock being lifted into the ceiling, but the hands grasped him firmly and tugged him down into the drain. As he descended Paul glanced up and saw the anxious face of Bob Wier surrounded by the moon faces of several pale men, all of them printed against the black sky.

  “Don’t fight it,” whispered Bob Wier.

  The hands beneath him placed Paul’s toes on a narrow rung, while hands from above did the same with his fingers. Paul found himself descending under his own power. The rungs were chill and damp, and a similarly chill, damp breeze blew from below, tickling Paul’s ears and wafting up his pant legs. Looking up again he saw Bob Wier’s backside and the scuffed soles of his penny loafers as he lowered himself into the drain, while below, when Paul dared to look, he saw a pale scalp descending into the dark and even farther below, little flashes of light gliding to and fro at the bottom of the shaft.

  Not happening, Paul chanted silently, not happening. I’m fast asleep and Callie’s fast asleep next to me. I’m wrapped in my baby’s arms, and this is a dream.

  Still, it was an unusually vivid dream. They descended far enough that Paul’s arms and legs started to tremble from the exertion, but just when he needed to stop and catch his breath, the hands below grasped his ankles, then his calves, and then his waist, steadying him as he stepped off the ladder onto a gritty floor. The flashes he had seen from above turned out to be pale men wielding flashlights, and as the beams glided all around him, a dizzy Paul noted roughly carven walls of rock, streaked with damp. The beams caught glittering drops of water along the low ceiling, and Paul felt the humidity of the tunnel close around him like wet gauze. Sweat started out of his hairline and under his arms.

  Bob Wier came down out of the drain a little out of breath, and his footsteps scraped along the gritty floor of the tunnel towards Paul. Pale men dropped silently out of the drain like large, plump spiders, mingling among the ones waiting at the bottom. In the jittery glare of the flashlights, Paul tried to count them, but their faces shifted and faded too quickly. He couldn’t even hear them breathe, which, he scolded his dreaming subconscious, was an unnecessarily creepy detail.

  “I’m dreaming,” Paul said earnestly to Bob Wier.

  “Sure,” said Bob Wier, catching him by the arm and tugging him down the tunnel. “Whatever you say.”

  As they marched downward into a dank breeze, Paul managed to smile. I might as well enjoy this, he decided. The ol’ lizard brain is working overtime tonight. The beam of the lead man’s flashlight bored down the tunnel ahead of them; against the glare Paul saw the silhouettes of several heads, each egg-shaped outline furred by a buzz cut. He glanced back and was blinded by the beams of a couple more flashlights. The tunnel was full of the reverberating tramp of feet. Just relax, he told himself, and have fun with it.

  “Hi ho!” he sang. “Hi ho! It’s off to work we go!”

  Somebody cuffed his ear from behind, and Paul
cried, “Ow!” Ahead, he glimpsed Bob Wier’s profile in silhouette, looking back over his shoulder. “Try to take this seriously, Paul,” he said.

  Up ahead he saw the flashlight glow reflected off a bend in the tunnel, and then the walls of the tunnel swung away and the ceiling lifted, and the air became less close and a little less humid. In the play of flashlight beams Paul saw a wide, natural cavity of creamy yellow stone, the walls and ceiling etched smoothly into sharp peaks and shallow scallops, like meringue. The floor here was smoother and firmer, with less grit, and the farthest beam showed a broad track winding away into the dark.

  “Okay,” Paul said, beginning to feel pleased at the DVD quality of his subconscious, “this is pretty good.”

  Silhouetted against the beam ahead was a low, squarish outline, and then the flashlights from behind illuminated a scruffy little golf cart, a two seater without an awning, its white side panels dinged and smudged. Out of the dark the hands of pale men guided Paul up onto the passenger seat. Bob Wier squeezed next to him, his knees spread wide around the little steering wheel. He turned the ignition, and the little cart vibrated to life. He switched on the cart’s headlights and stepped on the accelerator, and the cart whirred forward, its fat little tires crunching against the track. Paul looked back to see the pale men standing in a bunch, all of them watching him go, their flashlight beams lancing in every direction. On a sudden whim he stood up in the cart and waved to them with the back of his hand, like departing royalty.

  “My good and faithful subjects,” he trilled, in a queenly falsetto. “God bless you all.”

  Bob Wier grabbed him by the belt and hauled him back into his seat, just before Paul could be brained by a low hanging rock.

  “I just want to say,” said Paul, “that this is the best dream I’ve ever had.”

  “Listen, Paul.” Bob Wier’s face was in the dark, while ahead of them the creamy peaks and scallops of the cavern walls glided through the headlamps. “You need to prepare yourself for what’s about to happen.”