A much larger spider, white as snow with a swollen abdomen the size of a football, squeezed out from under the couch and probed him with its front legs. Then, pinning him down with its weight, it grabbed onto his leg and began to wrap him in a web of tough, sticky silk. The other spiders withdrew, leaving the white one to its work. Ed moaned wordlessly, trying in vain to move his legs. Being devoured by a giant spider seemed like a particularly bad way to die.
The ceiling was turning translucent, revealing the apartment upstairs for a moment, but this soon faded away to reveal a sky full of impossibly bright stars, more brilliant and more colorful than Ed had ever seen them before. Every one had its own unique color. Then, in a smooth, vast motion, the sky unfolded to reveal a magnificent city suspended upside-down above him. Ed saw skyscrapers, parks, streets full of vehicles. Minuscule airplanes took off from a tiny airport on an island. Although it was well after sunset, the city was lit by sunlight that was reflected in the dark water of the ocean. Ed had never seen any city so beautiful; Los Angeles was a filthy, sprawling place by comparison. The wailing noise still filled his ears.
The city drew closer, and Ed realized that he was falling toward it from the sky. The spider was gone. He was no longer in his apartment; he was plummeting down into the city from above. A hot wind tugged at his clothes and hair. The sun sank rapidly below the horizon, leaving the city in twilight as a million little lights came on to illuminate the streets and buildings. His descent slowed, and he floated lower and lower until he stood on the ground in an open space. Ed knew this place well. He had dreamed about it before, many times.
A man in a dark cloak stood on a wide platform not far away. Ed couldn’t make out his face in the near-darkness. In a smooth motion, the man threw aside his cloak to reveal a body made entirely of mirrors. There was no source of light that Ed could see, yet somehow the mirrors reflected an intense white light, scattering it in all directions and forcing him to shut his eyes. When he opened them, the man was gone.
There was still that high-pitched wailing, somewhere in the distance, like a woman in pain. A tiny light flickered to life nearby, then another, and soon the blackness was dotted with little points of yellow light. For a better view, Ed pulled himself up into the platform where the mirror-man had stood. The lights were all around him except on one side, where the darkness was still absolute.
As he walked across the platform, he stumbled over something small on the floor. He bent down to examine it, and found what appeared to be a dead animal of some sort. Its skin was smooth, not hairy, and was cool to the touch.
“Where is this place?” a voice rasped behind him. Ed spun around and nearly fell over in his fright.
The person who had joined him on the platform was a foot taller than Ed. His face was concealed by the darkness, and the only feature Ed could make out was the short, stubbly hair on top of his head. “Where did you come from?” Ed demanded.
“We’re supposed to come here,” the man said, appearing not to have heard the question. “You have to find out where this is.” He stepped closer, and although his face was still shrouded in darkness, his right eye began to glow a deep, awful red.
The wailing stopped. In its place, Ed heard something outside—out in the darkness. It sounded like the steps of a great, lumbering beast approaching from the distance. The ground shook slightly with each step.
“You!” Ed cried, backing away from the man. “You!” No other words would come out.
The man sniffed the air. “You took his drugs,” he said. “Don’t listen to that cripple. You can do this without.”
“What do you mean?”
“This is the place,” the man growled. He took another step closer. “Urizen is coming. He’s out there. Do you hear him coming?”
“Get away from me!”
The man pointed a finger at Ed. He had to shout now to be heard over the rumbling approach of the beast in the darkness. “Did it work?”
The question made no sense to Ed. “Did what work?”
Another step closer. “I did it to set you free. You ignored the call the first time, but you can’t avoid it forever. It was planned for you even before you were born.” He reached out with both hands to grab Ed by the head. “Let me in! Let me guide you! Let me be you!”
“No!” Ed wrenched away and leaped down from the platform. He fled toward the lights, but they winked out before he could reach them. The darkness was now absolute. The man was chasing him; Ed could hear the sound of his breathing. On he ran into the blackness, until he found that he could no longer feel the ground under his feet. He spun wildly through space, disoriented and afraid, until he slammed into something with painful force. His body suddenly hurt all over, like he’d just been plunged into a pool of pure, liquid pain.
Ed opened his eyes and struggled to make sense of his surroundings. He was lying on his back in a confined space. There was a flat, wooden surface a foot above his face. He was locked inside a coffin! The gnome had buried him alive! In a panic, Ed pushed at the wooden surface with both hands, and was surprised when it moved slightly. He pushed harder.
It was only when the wooden object reached its tipping point and fell over that Ed realized he had been pushing on the underside of his coffee table. The table dumped its contents on the floor as it tipped over with a thump. He was lying on his living room floor. There were no spiders. Pain tore through his head as he pulled himself up to a sitting position.
He sat on the floor for a long time, staring at the mayonnaise stain on the rug. It bubbled angrily, as if the floor was hot. The blue armchair was watching him suspiciously from the far wall, though he was sure he hadn’t done anything to provoke it.
His heart was beating so hard that it seemed it would give out at any moment. He considered getting up, but quickly abandoned the idea as far too risky. Instead, he lay back down on the floor to sort things out for a minute.
Someone began shining a bright light on him. Why were they doing that? Ed opened his eyes carefully, until they were open just a crack, but there was no one there. The light was coming from the window. It was yellow, like sunlight, but that was impossible. The sun couldn’t be up in the middle of the night.
He managed to pull himself up onto the couch. Then, very slowly, he stood up. The pain in his head subsided a little once he was upright. He wandered across the room in a daze. It had to be time to go to bed, he thought. But when he got to the bedroom, someone was in his bed.
He blinked in confusion. Was it Eleanor? Standing by the bedroom door, looking in at the bed, he couldn’t figure out who it was. Dark hair. Wasn’t Eleanor’s hair a lighter color? He wanted to go to bed with her, but she was so far away. The bed was miles away from the doorway where he stood. He stood there for ages, watching her sleep, wanting to go to her. The room tilted gently to the side, until he had to grab the doorframe to keep from sliding downhill and out the window.
Then she rolled over, and Ed could see her face. It was someone else—not her.
A name bubbled up from the depths of his brain. Doris. A memory of the night before. The girl had stayed over. She was here because of the Guru. She had offered herself to Ed, all to please the Guru.
The floor lurched under his feet. What was happening? The light had turned gray. His room was filling with fog. A strong wave of nausea overtook him, and he leaned over to vomit... but no vomit came, and he just kept leaning farther and farther until he found himself on the floor. Doris was awake now. She looked worried about something. She was sitting up, but up was pointing in the wrong direction. She was getting out of bed and running across the room toward him. Why was she so—
18
A Pleasant Talk with Dingleberry
Tony Sprague opened the car door, reciting the Miranda rights in a bored voice while Big John wrestled the suspect into the back seat. “Stupid little crap-turd,” John muttered as he did this, “You wanna throw your rocks at me?”
The crap-turd was a bald young man who’d been
sitting in the middle of the street at Melrose and La Cienega. Right out in the street, during rush hour. John wondered what would make a person so messed up in the head that they would shave off their hair and sit in the street.
Then, as if that weren’t enough, he’d pulled a handful of rocks out of his black shirt—more of a tunic, really—and threw them, one at a time, at the car as Tony had driven up. One of them caught John in the face through his open window. He lost his temper, jumped out of the car, and socked the guy in the mouth with his club, to the sound of faint applause from some passersby who had stopped to watch.
It wasn’t until John had grabbed him and smacked the rocks out of his hand that the suspect had started to put up a fight. He wasn’t all that large; John was at least twice his weight. The wrestling match was over in eight or ten seconds, and soon Tony was driving back toward the station with John in the passenger seat and the bald suspect in the back seat nursing his jaw. John hoped it was broken, so he wouldn’t pester them all the way to the precinct, but no such luck.
“I wondered if they’d send cops with some balls,” he said through the wire mesh. “What’s your name, gorilla-man? How did you get Dr. Moreau to let you off the island?”
John didn’t bother answering. Ignoring them was usually the best way to avoid having to provide a whole lot of court testimony later.
“I’m Larson. You guys want to stop for a beer? I’ll buy the first round.” He waited expectantly, as if he really thought they’d do it. “All right, you let me know if you change your mind. Hey, big guy, are you ready for the Judgment?”
Ah, thought John. Religious freak, not drugs. Or could be both. John was not in the mood for any weirdo sermons about space aliens, or whatever this clown was selling. “Hey, asshole,” he said, “remember when my partner told you to remain silent? ’Cause I still got my stick all ready to go up here if you wanna keep talking.” He turned around and gave Larson his biggest, toothiest smile, and brandished his club.
“You can hit me again if it’ll make you feel better,” said the kid. “You don’t know how far gone you are.”
Tony snorted. He always got a kick out of the weirdos. “So who do you work for, Larson? Joseph Smith? Or Xenu?”
“Lord Orc,” Larson replied.
“That’s a new one,” said Tony.
“And your Lord Orc tells you to go sit in the street?” asked John. He could keep a straight face with the best of them.
“He told me to find some cops and tell them the good news,” Larson replied. “We need cops. Someone to help us keep order when the big day comes.”
John decided to keep him going for a bit. “The Judgment, right? Gotta be ready for that.” Tony looked out the window to hide his laughter.
“You’re making fun of me,” Larson said. “Come on, Gorilla, you should be smarter than that. All I’m doing is spreading some good news. Money, that’s good news. I’m spreading that, too. I’m looking for cops who want money. Lord Orc has a lot of money. Do you like money?”
“Trying to bribe us now, is that it?” John didn’t like disrespectful assholes, but assholes who offered him money were a real trip.
“Five hundred bucks for each of you right now. It’s in my bag, the one your buddy’s got on the front seat there. There’s a secret compartment in the bottom. That’s just hello money. Just my way of being nice money. There’s a lot more back at the house. Hey, Gorilla, you’re big enough to be a biker. And you got a biker’s tattoos. You know any bikers?”
“I probably do,” said John. “But you’re outta luck, ’cause I don’t need any cash at the moment.”
“Too bad,” said Larson. “It’s a thousand for every biker and fifteen hundred for every cop you bring us. Think of it as a finder’s fee. All they have to do is talk to us, and you get your money. Even if they don’t join the Society. That’s my message.”
“I have a message for you, too,” said John, “but I gotta stop the car and drag you outside to give it to you. You want it?”
“My address is on a piece of paper in my bag,” Larson said. “Go there and ask for Arthur. He leads the Society. You can’t be prepared for the True Judgment unless you know Arthur.”
“And Arthur’s got money to burn, does he? This church of yours must have some rich members, unless there’s something going on that shouldn’t be.”
“The money comes from donations. The house, too. Arthur isn’t corrupt. That’s why he left the Process Church and started the Society. They were too dirty for him.”
“Yeah,” Tony said, “I’m sure he smells like flowers. Anybody else you want to point us to, as long as your giving away free tips?”
Larson didn’t answer. He didn’t continue with his nonsense religious talk either, which was good. Noisy passengers were worse than violent ones. The wire mesh could keep them from hurting you, but it couldn’t shut them up.
Tony pulled into what John liked to call the Guest Entrance at the station and helped John unload the suspect. Sure enough, once they got him inside they found a large wad of cash hidden in a compartment in his black bag. The money went into evidence. Neither of the cops wanted anything to do with it. But when Tony wasn’t looking, John made sure he got a look at Larson’s name and address. Bribes were illegal, but finder’s fees—well, those might be a little different. And as it turned out, Big John did know a biker or two.
* * *
For Ed, the next two days passed in a blur. Somehow Monday came and went, and by the time he was able to muster the energy to get out of bed, it was Tuesday.
“I need to go take care of the Guru,” Doris said as Ed was brushing his teeth. “He hasn’t been feeling well.”
Ed spat out the toothpaste, gripping the edge of the sink to keep from toppling over. “Okay.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t go to work yet.”
“I have to.” He was barely able to stay on his feet, but he was determined to go back to work today. If nothing else, work might keep his mind occupied enough to make him forget how lousy he felt. And if that didn’t work, he might have to find Cliff to make arrangements for an emergency supplement.
Doris let him go, though she frowned at him worriedly all the while he was getting ready. Thankfully, he didn’t fall down or throw up a single time. He was sure she would drag him back to his bed at the first sign of weakness.
They left his apartment together so Ed could lock up behind them. At the bottom of the steps, Doris caught his arm. “Promise me you’ll go see him. He’s not as bad as you think he is.”
Ed sighed in defeat. “I’ll go see him.”
“Say you promise.”
“I’ll go see him,” Ed said again.
Doris nodded her approval. “If you don’t show up, I’ll send Rat to hunt you down and eat you.”
Ed rolled into work just before lunchtime and snuck past Dingleberry’s office while Rosemary, Berry’s secretary and hired thug, was away from her desk. Mookie was not in the office; he was probably out at a crime scene. Ed sat at his desk for a while, nursing his headache and wishing for the hundredth time that the office had a window that could be opened.
When he couldn’t take the silence any longer, he got up to look for Cliff Leonard.
Ed found his supplier sitting alone at a table in the cafeteria on the eighth floor, eating a sandwich. Cliff didn’t look happy to see him.
“Dallman was looking for you all day yesterday, Ed. I don’t think he’s too pleased with you.”
Ed took a chair across from him and tried not to look at the food. “Had a rough weekend.” Ed glanced around the room; the nearest officers were too far away to hear him. “Cliff,” he whispered, “I need you to get me some more.”
Cliff stopped chewing and glanced around. “What’s the matter with you?” he said around a mouthful of bologna and cheese. “Don’t talk about that here.”
Ed ran a hand through his hair, which was getting pretty long. He hadn’t washed it in a few days. “Please. I need your help.”
Scowling, Cliff stood up and walked out to the hallway while Ed hurried to catch up. They could see into the cafeteria through a wire-reinforced window in the wall, but the officers inside wouldn’t be able to hear what they were saying. As soon as the door swung closed, Leonard rounded on him. “What the hell are you trying to do? Don’t talk about that shit when there are people around.”
“I’m trying to quit. I just need a little bit more to help me get off it.”
Cliff leaned against the window and folded his arms. “You know it’s going to kill you, right?”
“I have money―”
“I don’t want your money anymore. You need to stop this.”
Ed fought the urge to grab him and shake him. “You have no idea. You don’t know the first thing about what I’ve been going through.”
Leonard held up a hand and waited for a couple of officers to walk past. Ed thought they worked in Internal Affairs. They opened the door to the cafeteria and went inside. Cliff continued in a lower voice. “Maybe I do know. Your wife died. You went a little nuts. The drugs helped a little. But it’s time to start facing your problems like a man. Look at you. You’re turning into a junkie. When was the last time you took a bath? For God’s sake, clean yourself up.” Before Ed could reply, Leonard yanked the door open and went back to his lunch.
Ed pressed his palms against his eyes. He would talk to Cliff later, he decided. They were friends; Leonard would help him out if he saw how desperate Ed was.
Through the window, Ed could see the two officers who had passed by a minute ago. The taller one was talking to Leonard, who suddenly seemed to be getting rather antsy. Cliff glanced at Ed briefly through the window, then looked away. The other cop, a stout fellow with curly, dark hair, seized Cliff by the arm. The two men walked him out the door, brushing past Ed, Leonard’s eyes fixed on the floor as he walked by. They know, Ed thought. They’re onto him, and he’ll point them to me. Staring down the hallway in the direction Cliff had been taken, Ed’s thoughts turned to finding the quickest route out of the building. He turned toward the nearest stairwell.
Forest of the Mind (The Book of Terwilliger 1) Page 16