She picked up one of Zachary's productions and set it against the striking plate.
"Ready?"
"Before you do that, let me make a prediction. That match will burn like any ordinary match, nothing more, maybe a lot less," said Zachary.
"Why do you think that? We put them together using the same process and chemicals. They should react the same way," countered Anne.
"Yes, we did. But you made one set, and I made the other,"
"That makes no difference in chemistry."
"We're not dealing with chemistry," said Zachary. "Go for it."
Anne shrugged and ran Zachary's match along the strike plate, watching dumbfounded as it burst into a tiny flame and slowly petered out. Just as Zachary had predicted, it burned like an ordinary match.
"It's one of the first lessons you'll learn here. The rules follow the person not the other way around," said Zachary. "Maybe you can figure out why things work that way, but none of the rest of us have… yet."
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
T- 63 Hours - The Unhealing
Reality felt wrong. Twisted, distorted, screaming under tension that made no rational sense, could never make sense. It was all wrong, warped beyond recognition, and I was trapped in the middle.
My lungs were filled with air more like molasses than a gas, preventing even a cry of frustration. I tried to move, to draw my pistol, to do anything that might free myself or Aden. The knife, its point just barely pricking Aden's throat, occupied my entire attention. The monster holding it only laughed.
"Not so impressive without dear old dad around to lend a hand?" he said. "Don't worry, I want her alive!"
I put everything I could into my muscles, forcing my body to move, to reach—
CRACK
The world changed, and I wasn't in Pocketville anymore. I don't know how I knew, just that it was the incontrovertible truth. Sensations assaulted my mind like nothing I'd ever felt before—impossible feelings that no living being could experience. Searing hot shackles cut into the mummified skin of my wrists. My chest burned as lungs, long still, sucked stale air, and my leathery heart contracted around ancient, powdery blood. My eyes opened, and I could feel their raw, empty sockets. It was my body, bound to dry stone, and yet it wasn't. I had never lived in this shell, suffered this fate.
The flesh knew I wasn't its master.
A scream tore through its dry, rattling vocal cords. I could feel its pain, its rejection, and its primal fear and hatred. I didn't belong in this—
SNAP
"What the hell was that?" I coughed out and fell over gasping. The car and attackers were gone and Aden along with them.
Anne was on the ground, moaning. A yellowish-white shaft of bone had punched through her pant leg, and her other knee was bent at an unnatural angle. Blood and dirt covered her face, along with visible tire tracks running across her forearm.
"Aden! Where's Ad…" Anne gasped and tried to sit up only to fall back to the asphalt as her arm collapsed—adding another bruise to her copious injuries.
"Don't try to move," I said. "You'll only hurt yourself."
"Where's Aden?"
"I don't know," I answered. There was no doctor in Pocketville capable of helping Anne—no one with the needed skills had ever been brought to the City. In the outside world, those injuries would have her laid up for months, maybe longer. Here, she'd be lucky to not lose her leg to infection or worse.
"We have to follow …" She tried to prop herself up again and collapsed a second time, unconscious.
Sitting in the street was not an option. Someone would spot us, make a phone call, and then there would be Sheridan and questions and no chance of finding Aden before it was too late. I carried Anne inside as carefully as I could and set her down in my chair, it being the only reasonably soft furniture within easy reach.
The phone rang before I could think of what to do next. Anne's blood on my hand made it slippery, and I almost dropped the handset before getting it to my ear.
"Hello?"
"Please give the phone to Ms. Currie," said Adam.
"She's unconscious at the moment," I said. "Now is really not—"
"Unfortunate," he cut me off. "She will not be happy with my decision, but I have no other options. Assistance is already en route to your location. Do not interfere."
"Adam, what are you doing?" I asked already feeling a chill run down my spine.
"Repaying a debt," he said, and the line went to dial tone.
The mere idea of Adam owing a debt to Anne flew in the face of everything I knew about the Hidden. He never asked for favors. Never. Then again, my first aid supplies were limited to alcohol in the form of the cheapest bottle of scotch I could find and a few adhesive bandages that would barely cover a paper cut much less Anne's injuries.
Scotch sounded good. I grabbed a glass from the kitchen and poured a finger for myself. Anne moaned just as I finished it off, so I poured a glass for her and carried the bottle back out front. She winced as I lifted her head and put the smoky liquid to her lips.
"Sip it, don't gulp," I warned. "Try not to move too much or you'll pass out again."
"Where's Aden?" she asked, taking the glass from me with her good hand.
"You're in no shape to worry about that right now," I said, emptying what was left of the bottle into her glass.
"She's my daughter, Zachary," said Anne, groaning. "What happened?"
"She'll be alright," I said with more surety than I felt. "We need to get you—"
A knock at the door interrupted me, and I answered with pistol in hand.
"Is Anne Currie here?" asked a short, balding man wearing a leather butchers apron covered in dark stains. His skeletal arms clutched a black leather bag to his chest as if it were his most beloved possession.
"And if she is?" I asked.
"What are you, an idiot? I have the bag! I'm wearing the appropriate attire! No hat or coat, but definitely the—"
"Did Adam send you? The Hidden?"
"Yes! Do you think I'd be running around knocking on strangers doors asking for… " Anne moaned, and the little man brushed past me as if I were nothing more than a loose curtain over the doorway. "You're wasting time with these trivialities? What are you thinking, man!"
"I'm thinking I don't trust you," I said, putting the forty-five's barrel against the back of his head. "I'm thinking you should—"
"Zachary, shut up," said Anne, wincing at her own words. "You know him as well as I do. He can help."
"I've never seen him before in my life!"
"Of course not! I changed faces yesterday," said the strange little man. "But I know you, Zachary Tekcop. Yes, I know you, and I know your mother. She worries about—"
"Close your mouth and do your job." My voice grew cold. Much colder than I could have imagined. That same knot of darkness Dad had antagonized writhed inside me. "You were there?"
"Yes! Yes! Was there when he came through. I was touched by the fleshless soul. It changed me. Yes! It changed me. It made me what I am."
"Lee?" I asked, thinking of the six foot tall, muscular EMT I had known years before. Back when no one knew what Pocketville really was.
"Yes! Yes!" cackled Lee. "Now, I need privacy. Go away while there's work to be done. Come back when it's finished. Come back in two… three hours time."
"Are you sure about this, Anne?" I asked, holstering the forty-five and keeping my eyes on Lee. He was busily cutting off Anne's pants with a pair of foot-long scissors and muttering to himself.
"Yes," Anne said, wincing as Lee probed around the bone jutting from her broken leg. "Let him work."
My stomach didn't feel up to watching the man work. Back then, he'd been the senior med-tech in my mother's lab. She'd called it her foothold into the unknown. I was touched by the fleshless soul. No, I definitely did not want to be there when he went to work.
"Zachary," said Lee.
"Yes?"
"You should visit her house," he said. "The W
astes are empty."
"I'll think about it."
A letter was waiting for me on the kitchen table, bearing T.E.M.'s signature thumbprint. If my annoyingly cryptic client was going to show up, now was as good a time as any.
Zachary,
I must compliment you on your efficient and highly successful investigation thus far. Your results have exceeded even my own expectations. There is no doubt that you will shortly have within your possession the item I wished to recover.
I also should apologize for the inconvenience my request has brought upon your acquaintance. It would appear that someone very special has been taken forcibly. If your friend, Ms. Currie, is willing to negotiate, I have information that she will find extremely valuable in the recovery of her offspring. As per our own dealings, inform Ms. Currie that she may speak with the bartender at Mike's who will convey her response.
Good hunting.
T.E.M.
I read it again, my blood boiling the entire time, just to be sure I hadn't missed anything. Behind the note was another check that I barely looked at. This bastard thought he was playing me, and I didn't like it one bit. I had to know who or what I was dealing with, and there was only one person who could help. Lee was right, it was time to go visiting.
A trip through the Wastes, alone, was not an idea that I relished. With Anne and her toys or Paige's speed and my forty-five, a stroll through that barren landscape would have been no worse than a trip down main street. All I had was a box of untested bullets and precious few of Anne's matches.
As much as I hated doing it, I picked up the phone and dialed Sheridan's direct number—at once hoping Sheridan was as much of a hard-ass as I thought and at the same time that he was still in bad enough shape that he wouldn't be at his desk.
"Lieutenant Xidorn."
"This is Artemas," I said. "How's your head?"
"I don't have time for you, Artemas, what do you want?"
"Do you want to catch your killer? The one who disappeared right in front of you?"
"Artemas …"
"Hear me out. There's someone who I believe will have information useful to both of us, but I need a hand getting to her."
There was a long pause before he spoke again. "Alright, I'll bite."
"Good. Meet me at the end of Kokura street. Did you get a replacement shotgun?" I asked.
"What kind of a mess are you getting me into?"
"I don't know yet, could be none or it could get… messy. Bring extra ammo and a flack jacket," I said and hung up. He's going to arrest me, I thought. It didn't matter, I needed him, and he needed me whether he knew it or not. If I could convince him of that, a trip into the Wastes should just about fill the time Lee needed to patch up Anne.
I cracked the kitchen door to check up on her before leaving. What I saw burned itself into my brain like a brand. Reddish light suffused the room, making it hard to discern anything, and then I saw Anne. Dead, fleshy white orbs, slowly sinking into their sockets, stared sightlessly out into space. Her gaunt, skeletal face was framed by spidery thin hair rather than fiery red waves. Below her gasping mouth, a spiraled cord of sickly grey flesh had attached itself to her throat. It throbbed as if connected to some monstrous heart. Glowing red orbs moved along the cord's length as if drawing every last ounce of life from the husk of her body.
I swung the door all the way open as my eyes traced the cord to its source: a pulsing mass of flesh that glowed with greenish light. Lee's apron and leather bag lay next to it, discarded on the floor. There was no mistaking his bald head attached to the top of that pulsing mass, eyes closed and smiling in satisfaction.
"LEAVE! NOT DONE YET!" Lee's voice was a deep, rumbling roar that smashed into my mind as hard as anything dear old Dad had ever thrown at me. I automatically braced for another impact, my hand racing to my pistol—ready to dump all eight rounds into the thing in front of me.
Almost. At the last instant, my eye caught something that gave me pause: there was another cord on the other side of Lee's shapeless body. This one attached to a glowing, reddish sack floating freely in the air. I could just make out the silhouette of a woman's body through the hazy material. She was indistinct and curled into a ball, but definitely a woman.
"I TOLD YOU LEAVE!" Another wave of force sent me staggering backward into the kitchen. Much more of that and someone would be scraping pieces of my skull off the walls. I had just enough composure left to scoot out of the way as a heavily muscled tendril of Lee's flesh slammed the door shut.
When this mess was over, Adam and I were going to have a long talk about his idea of medical assistance. Fifteen years ago, I wouldn't have hesitated to punch as many holes in that thing as I could, and it would have cost Anne her life in the process. Then again, fifteen years ago things like the monster that Lee had become didn't exist, and I still used the name Tekcop.
With one more look at the door, I turned to leave through the back. I had to trust that Lee, no matter what he looked like, would be true to his word. Besides, Sheridan was waiting for me.
Kokura street, named for a place no one from Pocketville had ever heard of—another city, in a very different place, twice passed over by doom. It dead-ended into a wall so covered in grime that it looked more like the sheer side of a dirt mound than brick. Old, grungy warehouses were stacked wall-to-wall for nearly a mile before the next cross street or even a door provided an exit. One way in, one way out, and a convenient dumpster to hide behind—perfect setup for an ambush. I knew it when I picked the place and still Sheridan caught me off guard. The only indication I had that he beat me to the meeting was a shotgun racking behind me. I spun around and found myself staring down the barrel of Sheridan's shiny new twelve gauge pointed at my chest.
"I should haul you downtown for dragging me out here!" he said.
"Are you going to shoot me, arrest me, or shall we get on with this? I'm quite certain that you consider your time at least as valuable a commodity as I do my own," I stated, looking him directly in the eyes. His barrel didn't budge.
"I haven't decided yet," he smirked. "You know there are stories about this place floating around the station? There isn't a single patrolman in the whole department willing to come out here. What kind of crap are you trying to pull?"
"If you must know, we're going to visit my family," I replied. "At least, part of my family."
"Like that freaky girl who pretzeled my last gun?" asked Sheridan.
"I doubt that Paige will be there. She works for Janus, and we're going to see my mother."
"What do you need me for?" he asked frowning. "I don't do domestics."
"The neighbors get a little rowdy when company comes over. Besides, you want to catch the guy who's been carving people's faces off, correct? Ruth knows things that go on in this town that no else does."
He just looked at me with his finger uncomfortably close to the shotgun's trigger. The barrel had floated up until it was mere inches from my forehead, close enough that even a bean bag round would turn my face inside out. Paige could have dodged it and made another pretzel—or maybe she would have turned this one into a collar to leave a more definite reminder. Me? I'm as slow as they come, and propping up a bar doesn't qualify as athletic activity.
"Let's get this over with," he said, lowering the shotgun.
"Good! What kind of shells did you bring?" I queried.
"Double ought buck and slugs."
"Good enough." I said double-checking my forty-five. "Now, where's that door?"
The surroundings were almost identical to how I remembered them from my last visit. A new layer of grime here and there, a little darker, but essentially the same. Except for the wall. There should have been a door wide enough for a car to drive through, but there was only dirt and more dirt, as though someone had cut into a hillside and left the exposed earth uncovered.
"This isn't right," I commented and looked in the dumpster. The remnants of an old broom handle, broken off about halfway would serve my purposes.
One touch to the dirt wall and the wood started smoking and sizzling like bacon, dripping to the ground as a greyish ooze.
Sheridan took several quick steps back and cursed. "What the hell?"
"I don't know," I said. "The last time I was here, this was a warehouse with a wide bay door."
How much should I tell Sheridan? Being a Pocketville native, he wouldn't know anything about what we were looking at and probably wouldn't believe me if I told him. The end of Kokura Street was the beginning of the Wastes—a massive, open wound in Pocketville that wouldn't heal.
"Whatever this stuff is, it seems quite dangerous," I said.
"Yeah? You're a master of understatement."
"I'm going to clear a way through. Be ready to run," I said backing off a couple of paces. One of Anne's matches was more than enough to burn through the barrier—at least that's what I hoped.
"Are you losing it? That's not going—" started Sheridan, but the deafening roar of the match igniting cut him off. Searing flames splashed into the wall, sending out billowing clouds of sulfurous smoke and a nightmarish shriek. The sound flowed into me, carrying with it a molten essence of anguish that reverberated through every fiber of my being. It wasn't the intensity, the piercing nature, or any other purely physical quality of the sound that I felt. It spoke to something more basic, more fundamental and primal than my limited human senses. I could feel fiery chords from a thousand different voices flowing through me, trying to consume my mind and leave nothing behind.
Sheridan fell over and clapped his hands over his ears. I held onto the match, fighting to stay focused. Six seconds. Anne's matches burned for exactly six seconds. If I dropped it now, the match would go wild, spewing its torrent around randomly, and that would be that. Six seconds, I had to hold on for that long.
The match went out, and silence fell like a thunderclap. A faint echo of pain radiated from my knee, and I realized I had fallen, smashing it into the asphalt. Sheridan looked shaken but was regaining his composure quickly. Whatever the cost, the match had done its job and opened a hole through the wall. A hole that had started closing the instant the match went out.
The Erasable Man: Chronicles of Zachary Artemas Page 11