AFTERLIFE

by Marcus Sakey

  Just a dream. It doesn’t mean—

  Brody bolted for the door. Took the stairs two at a time, and burst into the lobby. A handful of people were scattered, dirty and clad in leathers and sweats that assaulted the elegant décor. They tensed when they saw him, hands going to weapons.

  “Kyle?” he asked the room at large. No one said anything. “Kyle, where is he?”

  A woman he didn’t recognize pointed outside.

  A gloomy day, but still bright after the hotel lobby. A group of kids were fighting with broomsticks. Lucy paced around them, coaching and correcting. The archer kid, Finn, had dragged a two-thousand-dollar leather chair out to the street and was firing arrow after arrow into it, twang thunk, twang thunk. Two men stood on the bridge, one scanning the city with binoculars, the other leaning on a vicious spear. A post-apocalyptic world without an apocalypse.

  “Brody.” Kyle sat atop a mailbox, eating potato chips and slurping Coke. “’Sup, man. How’d you—”

  “I need your help.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  She’d driven here in a kind of daze, the city outside her strange and silent and draped in fear. The tarps hiding gas stations, the blue-and-white presence of CPD on every block, the held-breath feeling of empty streets and empty stores. Claire wouldn’t have thought it was possible for the city to grow more frightened, but the news had been filled with the bomb, talking heads speculating about the sniper moving from individual targets to public ones, about poison gas in ventilation systems and explosions in the subway. Maybe there was no bottom to fear. Maybe that was what made it fear.

  Her cell had vibrated a dozen times in the twenty-minute drive, and she had ignored it each time. What could she have said, that she’d dreamed a man, and a book?

  The neighborhood was one of the prettier in the city, all red brick and money. The grey steeple of St. Michael’s was edged by brilliant blue sky. Somewhere she’d heard that the borders of Old Town had been decided based on how far the sound of the church’s bells carried. Orleans was a one-way south, shaded by broad trees with leaves colored in fire. 1739 was a two-story brick townhouse. A soft blanket of ivy framed the windows, and a faded wooden fence hid the view of a small side yard.

  Claire drove past, then circled around again and parked in a tow zone half a block up. Killed the engine and sat there listening to it tick. No church bells today, but the faint bing-bong of the Brown Line at Sedgwick. Idly, she unsnapped her Glock and set the weapon in her lap.

  Maybe this was the rabbit hole. Maybe she was tumbling down. She was tired of trying to formulate theories to explain what she was doing.

  The best way out of this strange recursion was forward. She would knock on the door and introduce herself. Explain it away as a routine canvass. Civilians loved to help the FBI. It made them feel like they were in a movie. Simon Tucks would look just like the man she had dreamed—obviously, since that was how she’d found him—but he’d be a nobody. A stand-in her brain had decided to use in a starring role. He’d offer her coffee, she’d accept. Spin five minutes of BS about how she was following up a lead about someone else in the neighborhood, nod her way through his replies, and hopefully remember where she knew him from. Regardless, she’d leave free of this nonsense and ready to do her job.

  Claire thumbed the magazine release of the pistol, checked the load—she knew it was full, but habits were habits for a reason—slapped it into place, racked the slide, and holstered it on her hip. She stepped out into autumn, a cool breeze with a thrilling hint of woodsmoke, then put her jacket on and adjusted it to cover the weapon.

  There was an elementary school on the opposite side of the street, a two-story building behind a wrought iron fence. The playground was empty, and all the windows had been covered with bright construction paper. She pictured the children inside, the teachers jumping at every loud sound. She wondered how many kids had been held back from school today, how many families huddled in their houses with the curtains drawn. Strange how swiftly the illusions of safety and civilization shredded. The things that we take as a given are not given. They’re imagined and implemented and maintained and protected one day at a time, and they are delicate.

  Claire walked beneath blowing leaves and blue skies to Simon Tucks’s door, and rang the bell.

  TWENTY-THREE

  “I’m telling you, it was real. That was Claire, and it was happening now. Or it’s about to.” Brody’s skin had shrunk tight enough to split, and he couldn’t stop pacing, talking with his hands. “It was real.”

  “No offense, man,” Kyle said, “but you’ve had a rough couple of days. You might be putting too much stock in a dream.”

  “This wasn’t a dream. It was something else. A vision, or a message.”

  “So you can see the future now?”

  “No, I.” He ground at his forehead with the tips of his fingers. He didn’t blame the man for his skepticism. But then, two days ago he would have been skeptical about a whole lot of things. “I don’t know, okay? This is all new.”

  “Yeah,” Kyle said. “That’s what I’m saying. Plus, you fed.”

  “What does that have to do with—”

  “I’ve fed before. We only kill in self-defense, but, you know, that happens. Each time I have, for weeks afterward, I’ll have these flickers. They last until the power fades. It drains away, you know. That’s why the Eaters are always hunting. You must be starting to feel it weaken some, after your fight the other day.”

  “Yeah, I have, but I don’t care about that right—”

  “Anyway, the flickers. I’ll be, say, sitting in the bar, and suddenly the room will be full of people. Real people, alive. I can hear them, that jumble of too many voices talking at once. Smell the perfume of the woman at the stool next to me. See the cat hair on the back of the host’s jacket. A second later, they’ll be gone, but it’s real. I’m seeing through to life.”

  “Okay! So then—”

  “But,” Kyle said, “it doesn’t matter.”

  “Doesn’t matter?” Brody spun. “What do you mean, it doesn’t matter? She’s alone, and—”

  “Who?” Lucy must have seen the energy developing between him and Kyle. She’d ambled behind them and stood with her hip cocked, the hilt of the katana jutting from her waist. Behind her, Sonny loomed, his face carved out of stone.

  “Claire,” Brody said. “My. The woman I love.” The words fell off his tongue so naturally he almost didn’t realize he’d never said them before.

  The biker said, “She’s dead too?”

  “No,” Brody snapped. “That’s the point. She’s alive, but she’s in danger.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He had a dream,” Kyle said.

  “I had—yeah, okay, fine, it happened while I was sleeping. But it wasn’t a dream.” The words sounded ridiculous, and he was briefly embarrassed to be saying them, especially in front of Sonny. “She’s about to face the man who killed me.”

  Mildly, Kyle said, “So what?”

  Brody fought down an urge to knock him right off the mailbox. “So we help her.”

  “I’m not saying I don’t care about your girl. But you’re dead, and she’s not.” Kyle shrugged. “Sorry, but that’s the situation. She could be standing right there with a gun to her head, you wouldn’t know until the trigger gets pulled.”

  “Kyle’s an asshole,” Lucy said, “but he’s right. You can’t reach her. Look around.” She gestured at the street, the city. They stood in the heart of the tourist district. Half a block from the Magnificent Mile. In the middle of a street full of abandoned cars. Wearing weapons.

  He wanted to scream.

  When he’d been chased by Raquel and her friends, he’d been as scared as he’d ever been, in a life lived loud. When Arthur and the others had filled him in on the echo, he’d been confronted with the bleak horror of things, and the existential dread had been unlike anything he’d known.

  Helplessness was worse.

  Claire was
in trouble. He knew it. And they were saying there was nothing he could do about it.

  No. He wouldn’t accept that. Brody paused, took a breath.

  He’d only worked undercover for a couple of months, but they’d been instructive. When you were trying to game the Mexican cartels, assessing personality and playing to it wasn’t just part of the job. It could keep you alive. Maybe it could help here.

  Kyle died a firefighter.

  Sonny ripped off his employers, and was murdered by them.

  You don’t know Lucy’s story. But the sword, the swagger, the biker boyfriend; she prides herself on being tough.

  Start there.

  Staring into Lucy’s eyes, he said, “Claire is not a damsel in distress. She’s the most capable person I’ve ever met.” He shifted his gaze to Sonny. “But she doesn’t know what she’s walking into. If she did, she wouldn’t be doing it alone.” Finally, to Kyle. “She needs help.”

  He let the words hang for a moment, then, slowly and carefully, spoke again. “I understand what you’re saying. But the woman I love is in trouble. Maybe I can’t do anything about it—but I will goddamn well try. And I could use your help.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  ZZZZZZZZZ

  Claire took her finger off the bell. The door had a window at head height, and a ghost of herself was reflected in it. She looked lousy.

  She didn’t care.

  Get this done. Whatever nonsense this is, do this to clear it. Then get on with saving lives.

  She waited. A breeze ruffled the trees above. The sky was that perfect shade of October, like a child’s dream of blue.

  The standard twenty seconds or so passed, and she pressed the button again.

  ZZZZZZZZZ

  If he wasn’t home, that would mess up her plan. She glanced at her watch, 9:21. Whoops. Hadn’t thought about that. 9:21, people were at work. As she was supposed to be, instead of aggressively looking for rabbit holes—

  Footsteps.

  Funny how even from outside the house she could sense the inside. There was a metaphor there, but for what she couldn’t quite say. Something about the way we do and don’t know each other.

  A face appeared in the window, and she almost jumped. It was the face from her dream.

  Of course it is, moron, she thought. That’s why you’re here.

  Once that cold-shower shock passed, she was able to notice how very normal he looked. Weakish chin, shortish hair, slightish ownership of his space. But perfectly everyday.

  Good. That’s what she needed. To be reminded of reality.

  The door started to open, then stopped abruptly three inches wide. A chain.

  “Hi,” she said, and flashed a corn-fed smile she’d practiced in the mirror for just this sort of moment. It was sweet and warm and innocent of intelligence or intent. “I’m Agent Claire McCoy.” She held up her credentials, offhanded. “I’m with the FBI. Are you Simon Tucks?”

  He looked at her ID, just a quick glance, verifying she was holding something. He nodded.

  “I was wondering if I could have a moment of your time. It’s probably nothing, but we’ve had several calls to the tip line regarding one of your neighbors. In conjunction with the sniper, obviously.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Which neighbor?”

  Two words. Three if you counted “Oh.” Not even particularly interesting words.

  But they changed everything. The world fell from beneath her feet.

  The voice.

  Conservatively, Claire would estimate she’d heard it a thousand times.

  It had played on loop while the techs analyzed every syllable, every scrap of background sound.

  Played on loop as she wandered her condo, touching the things that had been Will’s and now were nothing.

  Played on loop while she drove aimlessly through three a.m. dark.

  This was the man who had—

  “James McIntosh,” she said. “He’s on Menomonee.”

  “Sorry, I don’t know him.”

  “Well, like I said, probably nothing, but still, it would be very helpful if we could—”

  “Sure,” he said. And shut the door.

  One second. Two.

  Shit.

  She’d tried to cover her reaction, but to a man who had murdered this many people, there was no accidental visit from the FBI.

  Claire took a step back, planted her left foot and lashed out with her right, a wicked kick at the handle. The frame gave, the door ripping open, then hitting the chain and bouncing back.

  She drew the Glock, aimed it at the chain, and fired.

  A blast of sparks and the chain split in two.

  The door drifted open, revealing a spare living room. Bland couch, bland table, TV. No pictures, no décor. No one there.

  Claire aimed with her right, snatched her radio with her left, identified herself, gave an all-points emergency call saying that she was entering the sniper’s house at 1739 N. Orleans. She hadn’t even finished speaking before she heard sirens.

  Got you.

  A sound from further in. A crunchy-sliding sort of sound.

  He was running.

  She didn’t bother reclipping her radio, just dropped it, double-handed her weapon and swept in. A staircase traced the wall, but instinct told her that was wrong, she hadn’t heard the sounds of panic-running up it, and besides, it was harder to flee from the second floor. An arch led through to a kitchen, clear, one bowl in the sink with one spoon inside it, a box of cereal on the counter, speaker wires running along the floor, another arch beyond. Training took over, and Claire cleared it like she’d cleared Hogan’s Alley a million times back at Quantico. A hallway, door to the left, open, a spare room, but the sounds were ahead, and she hustled, careful not to trip in the wires, spinning round the door frame into a den with a window half open and the man, Simon Tucks, hands on either side of the frame.

  “Freeze!”

  Everything about him went rigid. There was something stuck in the back of his pants, a weapon.

  “Put your hands on your head and turn around! Do it, do it now!” Using the command voice.

  Simon Tucks lingered for a moment. Then he put his fingers on his head and turned, slowly.

  The sirens were louder, much, drawing close. The whole city was on high alert.

  “Keep your hands on your head and get on your knees and cross your ankles.”

  Simon stared at her, a sad expression, no menace in it. Hard to believe, at a glance, that this was the man who had killed eighteen people, including a twelve-year-old girl.

  Including Will Brody.

  Claire put her back to the wall, the gun never wavering. Simon lowered himself slowly. He looked up at her with liquid eyes. Scared eyes. The sirens grew louder.

  She had him. This was it, this was him. The man who had brought a whole city to its knees.

  And how, exactly, will you explain that?

  Claire had no doubt, none, that his DNA would match with the cigarettes and soda bottles they’d found. That in a search of the house, they’d find the assault rifle he’d used. Bomb-making materials. Schematics. Notes on future targets.

  But the law she served was a strange master. By the letter, she had no reason to be here. No reason to have kicked in his door.

  Under the circumstances, it was unlikely to matter. Eighteen dead, including a child and an FBI agent.

  But it could.

  Obviously, she couldn’t say that she’d seen him in a dream. But she could . . . well, she could make something up. He was a mass murderer. Lying about how she’d found him was not a sin.

  No. But this will be the highest profile case in America. You’ve got maybe twenty seconds to come up with a lie that you have to stick to forever. You’ll be questioned over and over. If you get it wrong, once, if you leave room for doubt . . .

  Everyone knew O. J. Simpson was guilty. But he went free mostly because the cops screwed it up.

  This man killed mothers and fathers. He killed a chi
ld.

  He killed Will Brody.

  It doesn’t matter how you found him.

  He has to die.

  The sirens were screaming now, not one or two but dozens, from all directions. They’d be here in seconds.

  Could she just execute him? No judge or jury, no proof, just her certainty?

  Yeah. She thought she could.

  Maybe he saw something in her eyes. Because with surprising speed, he released his hands from one another, reaching behind his back and sparing her the decision.

  Claire put three bullets in his chest in half a second.

  He shuddered. Froze. The thing that had made him a person fleeing fast. His body slumped. His hands fell.

  And she saw, an instant before it hit the ground, the thing he’d been going for.

  It wasn’t a gun after all. It was a small box, maybe three inches by one by one. Aluminum. Simple looking. A button on one side, about the size of a key on a computer.

  As it fell, Claire remembered the speaker wires. In the kitchen. The living room. The hall. Here.

  Those weren’t speaker wires.

  Then the detonator hit, and everything vanished in a flare of white and a blast that—

  TWENTY-FIVE

  The sky was grey.

  Swirling.

  Why was she looking at the sky? And why was it grey, instead of bright blue?

  Claire coughed.

  The sniper, she thought. You shot him, and . . .

  Right. She tried to sit, and was surprised to realize she could. She was dazed, dizzy. Confused. She patted herself, expecting agony. But everything felt okay.

  How the hell was she okay?

  She pulled herself to her feet. She stood in front of the townhouse, or what had been a townhouse, a moment ago. Now it was a shattered ruin of broken brick and smoke. A bland couch lay in front of her, upside down, the fabric ripped half off.

  Claire swayed, caught herself. Blinked against the dust in the air.

  It wasn’t that everything came back to her; it was that it had never left. Reality had just experienced a hiccup. A second ago she’d seen the detonator falling, seen it landing, felt a blast that turned her inside out.