A Cold Tomorrow

by Mae Clair

  Katie frowned reflexively, soured by the thought of her mother’s past.

  As if sensing she’d said something wrong, Doreen Sue drew back and folded her hands in her lap. “As for pinkeye, you and Wendy both had it.” She faltered, twining her fingers together. Her expression looked guarded, as if she feared prodding a buried memory awake. “Do you remember?”

  “No.” Katie imagined she’d had a lot of childhood illnesses she couldn’t recall.

  “You started drawing around that time,” Doreen Sue continued, still studying her. “Like Sam.”

  She grew agitated. So what if she drew? So what if she’d had pinkeye? Her son was in the ER, and she had a headache from too much wine. How could she point her finger at her mother’s past behavior when she was guilty of not looking after her only child?

  “Katie?” She jerked at the intrusion of a masculine voice and glanced up to find Ryan Flynn standing in front of her.

  “I thought you were spending the night with Eve and Sarah.” His blue eyes darkened with concern. “Did something happen?”

  “No.” She shook her head, coming to her feet. “Or yes.” Confusion made her trip over her thoughts. “I mean, it’s Sam.” Registering the shock on his face, she rushed to explain. “It’s nothing serious, just a bad case of pinkeye.”

  He exhaled in relief. “Still, it must be pretty bad to have you both here.” He looked at Doreen Sue.

  “I’ll let you two talk,” her mom said. “I’m going outside for some air.”

  And a cigarette. Katie buried the instinctive criticism as she watched her mother leave.

  “Sam’s going to be okay,” she told Ryan. “What are you doing here?”

  She shuffled to the side, clearing a path when the little girl with the sprained ankle returned to the waiting room. Aided by her mother, the girl hobbled in on crutches, managing a weak smile when her father and brother rose to greet her. The girl’s doctor followed, stopping to talk quietly with the family.

  “I’m off shift,” Ryan said. He must have only recently gone off duty, because he still wore his uniform. “I thought I’d do some poking around on Jerome.”

  Poor Jerome. In all the turmoil over Sam, she’d almost forgotten him.

  “Caden and I went to his house earlier,” Ryan said. “His car was there but he didn’t answer the door.”

  So he’d made it home safely. “He must have been sleeping.”

  “Yeah, that’s what Caden said too.” A sliver of doubt crept into his voice. “I called the hospital earlier, and there was no record of him being brought in last night.”

  “That’s good. He must have been able to drive home on his own.”

  Ryan nodded. “I thought I’d check with ER admissions to be sure. And I wanted to follow up on Deputy Brown. If he was here, someone should remember him.”

  “So you believe me about him?” Why couldn’t she recall the man’s face?

  “Let’s just say if someone’s running around, impersonating an officer with the sheriff’s department, I want to get to the bottom of it.”

  At least he didn’t discount her story entirely. Before she could comment, her mother burst into the ER in a whirlwind of panic.

  “Please! Someone help!” Doreen Sue focused on the doctor who stood speaking with the young girl’s family. “Outside! Come quick!” Without waiting to see if he followed, she raced for the exit. Ryan bolted behind her.

  Heart in her throat, Katie darted after him. “Mom!” She caught a fleeting impression of jelly flats and bleached blond hair before cold night air struck her in the face.

  “Over here.” Her mother was crouched by a form slumped against the building. “I’m not sure he’s breathing.”

  Ryan got there first, but was quickly pushed aside by the doctor. Katie tugged her mom out of the way as two orderlies and a nurse arrived with a gurney. Several other people barreled from the ER, including most who’d been stuck in the waiting room. Even the girl on crutches hobbled outside.

  “Get these people back,” the doctor yelled.

  Ryan took charge of the growing crowd, ushering any non-medical personnel clear. “Okay, folks. Stand back. Let the doctor do his work.”

  Katie found herself shuffled toward the sidewalk. Instinctively, she reached for her mom’s arm. “What happened?”

  There were tears on her mother’s face. No one would ever accuse her of lacking heart. “I came out for a cigarette and saw him slumped over. Do you think he’s dead?”

  “No.”

  Katie’s response was automatic, but her mind had latched onto an image of the Ouija board with the planchette resting on the word GOODBYE. The wine and popcorn she’d had churned in her stomach, awakening a sharp pang of nausea. Swallowing hard, she pressed a hand to her middle. It was too much—Sam, the ER, wine, the creepy game. The doctor rolled the unconscious man over and she saw his face as clearly as she’d seen it last night.

  “Oh, no. It’s Jerome.” His eyes were closed, his skin white and ghastly under the harsh glare of outside lighting.

  “I’ve got a pulse,” the doctor said. “Let’s get him into a room. Stat.”

  Katie choked back a cry as the orderlies lifted him onto the gurney. Jerome never so much as flinched, his body a dead weight. Swiftly, the gurney was hustled inside, leaving a befuddled crowd to murmur among themselves.

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” Katie said.

  “Take deep breaths.” Ryan appeared at her side, steadying her with a hand on her shoulder.

  “But Jerome…” She couldn’t get the image of his face out of her head. He’d looked lifeless, a plastic-like sheen to his skin, almost like a wax dummy. Where could he have been for the last twenty-four hours?

  “I’ll get to the bottom of it,” Ryan promised.

  Behind her, the crowd slowly broke up, most people returning inside. Cars rumbled down the street in the distance, cluttering her mind with the sound of engines, the thump of tires on asphalt. Snatches of conversation drifted on the chill air and added to the turmoil in her stomach.

  Looked dead. Spooky stuff happening…end up like Chester’s cow.

  And then a single name that cut through all the noise. A name that brought dread bound up with a heavier sense of awe.

  Mothman.

  Katie looked past the dispersing crowd and made eye contact with a man who stood at the corner of the building. But for his face and hands, he was shrouded in black from head to toe. His gaze burned through her, his eyes polished onyx, eerily familiar.

  “I’m so cold,” she mumbled. Then promptly doubled over and threw up.

  Chapter 4

  Relieved to be home, Katie held a cold washcloth to her forehead and sniffled. “I feel stupid.”

  “There’s nothing to feel stupid about. You’re just not used to drinking.” Ryan set a cup of black coffee in front of her, then sat next to her on the couch. Sam had collapsed in his bed ten minutes after they’d walked through the front door, exhausted after being wired on the adrenalin of the ER. The doctor had diagnosed his conjunctivitis as an allergic reaction rather than anything viral or bacterial.

  “Probably an isolated event. We’ve had a few cases turn up, so it could be a reaction to something environmental, like a change in air quality. Even if your son has never displayed that type of sensitivity in the past, there’s always a first time.”

  To be on the safe side, he’d prescribed an antibiotic and eye drops. Far from traumatized by the ordeal, Sam had spent the drive home explaining in vivid detail how they’d given him an eye wash in the exam room. With her stomach still roiling after her embarrassing display outside the ER, it wasn’t something she’d wanted to hear. Fortunately, she hadn’t disgraced herself a second time.

  Her mom had followed her home and stayed until Ryan arrived with an update on Jerome. He was the one who’d suggested coffee, although her mom provided the cold compress for her throbbing head. While Katie rarely
drank anything other than an occasional glass of wine—something she probably wouldn’t indulge in again for a long time—her mom had a long-standing association with hangovers.

  “You don’t have to stay.” Katie slanted a glance at Ryan. He looked tired, a little haggard around the edges as if the day had taken a toll on him too. A lamp in the corner cast a small puddle of light behind him, leaving the underside of his cheeks slashed with shadow. He’d started his shift early that morning and probably hadn’t even been home yet.

  A pang of guilt sliced through her. “I’ll be all right.”

  “Sure you will, but I don’t mind staying for a while. You’ve had a full night between Sam and Jerome.”

  Her stomach knotted. Sam was safe but she couldn’t say the same for Jerome. “I should have stayed with him last night. Made sure he got to the hospital.”

  “Katie, it’s not your fault. You did what anyone would do, given the circumstances. We’ve put out an APB on Deputy Brown, but it would help if you could give a description.”

  She winced, hating that she couldn’t conjure an image to match the name. “It was dark,” she said lamely. “I… I couldn’t see well.”

  Ryan nodded. His expression troubled her, as if she’d failed him. Failed Jerome.

  Irked at the glaring hole in her memory, she grasped for straws. “He must have had dark hair. Average. You know—height, build. Otherwise he would have stood out in my mind.”

  “That’s good.” He probably told every potential witness the same, coaching them with cop rhetoric. “How about some coffee?” He motioned to the cup.

  “No thanks.” The thought of putting anything in her stomach was repulsive. Heaving a sigh, she plopped the damp washcloth beside the mug, taking care to slide a magazine beneath it. How pathetic she could remember to care for her bargain outlet furniture, but couldn’t recall the face of a cop from last night.

  “I can freshen that up if you’d like,” Ryan offered with a nod at the washcloth.

  She shook her head, flattered by his attentiveness. They’d barely spoken to each other while growing up, Ryan a fixture with the popular crowd. She’d never heard him utter a bad word about her but her childhood nemesis, Suzanne Flemish, had done her best to make Katie believe Ryan regularly dissed her. Probably because Suzanne had spent the bulk of her teen years pining for Ryan.

  Katie curled her legs to the side, sinking back against the sofa cushions. Across the room, a few superhero comics lay scattered beside Sam’s favorite chair. Spiderman, Batman, Flash Gordon. They certainly wouldn’t have flubbed up and forgotten a man’s face.

  She chewed the inside of her cheek. “What do you think happened to Jerome?”

  “I don’t know.” Ryan’s shrug indicated he hadn’t drawn any conclusions from the hospital. “Whatever it was, it was bad enough to put him in a coma.”

  Jerome in a hospital bed, tubes sticking from him, IVs pumping fluid into his veins. He deserved far better. He had no family that she knew of, at least none in the area. The hospital and sheriff’s office would do their best to track down any relatives, but in the meantime, he was alone. She’d already asked if she could visit the ICU, but that privilege was reserved for immediate family.

  “Caden is working on getting a search warrant for Jerome’s house,” Ryan said. “Not that we suspect him of being involved in anything illegal, but it might help turn up a clue about what happened. Somehow, he got to the ER under his own power.”

  “And then passed out.” Katie scooped the hair from her face. She probably looked a wreck—hung over, half-nauseous, dressed in the comfortable baggy sweats she’d worn to Eve’s sleepover. It was a good thing her relationship with Ryan didn’t go past friendship. She’d made a mess of herself lately…abandoning Jerome, getting drunk when she should have been with her son, putting stock in a Ouija board. He probably thought she was a complete screw-up. At least he didn’t know about the stupid planchette and the silly questions they’d asked.

  The thought awakened a connected memory.

  “Ryan, when I was with Jerome, he kept repeating the word ‘cold.’ I thought it was odd because he was sweating. I want to make sure the doctors know about that.”

  “I’ll tell them. Maybe he had a fever or something.”

  She nodded, tumbling the thought around. Or something. The more she poked at her encounter with Jerome and Deputy Brown, the less sense it made.

  “I should probably get to bed.” It had grown late. Now that her headache had begun to recede, a fringe of exhaustion settled over her.

  “Good idea.” Ryan stood. “I’ll check with you tomorrow and see how you’re doing.”

  Katie saw him to the door, made sure it was locked behind him, then shut off the lights in the living room. She’d worry about straightening up tomorrow when her mind wasn’t fogged with relief for Sam and worry for Jerome. By the time she’d changed into nightclothes and crumpled into bed, she craved nothing more than a dreamless sleep.

  * * * *

  “So we’re good on this?” Ryan asked. “You got an all-clear to proceed?”

  Head bowed, Caden thumbed through a ring of keys. “Yeah.” His voice was tight, but it wasn’t surprising considering he’d only caught a few hours’ sleep after finishing his shift last night. With the noon sun beating down on Jerome Kelly’s small ranch home, bleaching the faded siding near-white, Ryan found it easy to convince himself their trip was a waste of time. Jerome was a loner. A conspiracy theorist who spent his down hours reading about Big Brother, UFOs, and the Mothman. It was doubtful anyone wanted to harm him.

  But he couldn’t explain away the presence of the unknown Deputy Brown or why Jerome was in a coma. Even so, he feared the only thing he and Caden were likely to find inside was a pile of books lauding the latest alien sighting or paranormal discovery. The guy usually had his nose buried in one or the other whenever Ryan saw him at the River Café.

  “Did they actually give you Jerome’s keys?” Ryan asked as Caden tried one, then another, inserting them into the lock on Jerome’s front door. A fluorescent green fob with AREA 51 stamped on the front dangled from the ring.

  “The doctor didn’t volunteer, but I didn’t see any harm in borrowing them when he wasn’t looking.” With a sharp smile, Caden turned the lock and pushed open the door. “We’ve got a winner.”

  “I thought you were going to get a search warrant?”

  “Until I got impatient. Jerome’s in a coma, fighting for his life. There might be something in here to tell us why.”

  He stepped inside and Ryan followed. The room was dimly lit and cluttered, shuttered by blinds. Ryan crossed to the nearest window and raised the dull white covering, allowing sunlight indoors. A flurry of dust mites sprang to life in the sudden illumination.

  “Not the best housekeeper, huh?” He stepped around a tower of newspapers teetering toward overspill. Most looked yellowed and old, the edges flaked and crumbling. Small particles of paper littered the floor, along with the crumbs from some forgotten snack.

  “Bigfoot sighted by three hunters near Brackenville,” Ryan read aloud, bending to examine the headline on the top paper. “Looks like our boy doesn’t discriminate among creatures. Imagine what would happen if he ever found out about your connection to the Mothman.”

  “That isn’t going to happen.” Caden had moved to the other side of the room where an old sofa and arm chair skirted a coffee table. An overflowing ashtray, two soda cans, and a pizza box cluttered the table. He lifted the top of the box to peer inside. “Empty. Not like he left in a hurry or in the middle of dinner.”

  “Did you get a chance to check with his employer?”

  “Yeah. He was at work the other day, same as usual. His supervisor said he was fine.”

  “So how come his car is here, but we find him curled up against the wall of the hospital, nearly comatose?”

  “Five bucks says Deputy Brown could tell us.”

  “Yeah.
” Ryan should have paid more attention when Katie first mentioned the man. The guy was obviously an imposter, but it stumped him how Brown could have gotten his hands on a sheriff’s car.

  A glance around the living room showed nothing that would make Jerome a target for someone who would want to harm him—faded furniture, a console TV, some cheap artwork and posters on the walls, the latter depicting space observatories or star fields. A solar system mobile hung above the TV, its colorful array of planets suspended by wire. Magazines and newspapers covered the floor and tables, no surface spared Jerome’s messy obsession.

  Realizing Caden had already moved off to investigate the kitchen, Ryan took the bedroom. Unlike the living area, Jerome’s bedroom was relatively orderly, the single bed neatly made, the top of the dresser bare but for some loose change, a paperback novel, and three bottles of cologne. He checked the closet, found it filled with clothes and shoes, more magazines stuffed on the top shelf.

  “Hey, Ryan. You’ve got to see this.” Caden’s voice drew him down the hall.

  Ryan found him inside a small bedroom that had been converted to an office.

  “What the…” Words failed him as he gazed around the cramped space. Two of the walls had been plastered with maps, star charts, and photographs of the night sky—all tacked up haphazardly with pushpins. A separate wall was devoted to the Mothman, the surface covered with newspaper clippings, drawings, and maps of the TNT. Several aerial photographs captured shots of the abandoned weapons igloos built into hillsides, their domes crowned with grass and trees.

  “Where the hell did he get all this garbage?” Ryan wondered aloud.

  “Who knows?” Caden bent over a desk, sorting through a hodgepodge of papers scattered on the top. “Look at this stuff. Alien abductions…extraterrestrial visitors…ley lines…” He called off random titles as he flipped through the pages. “This goes way beyond the scope of a hobby. I always knew Jerome was a bit whacked, but this is crazy.”

  Ryan picked up a paperback book. “UFO Sightings and Stories.” His gaze tracked to the far wall where a pen-and-ink rendering of the Mothman held center stage. “He seems pretty gone on the ET stuff. So what’s the connection to the Mothman?”