After that burst, a kind of thick stillness lowered itself over the woods. Even the artillery strikes sounded muffled; heavy weather coming in, maybe. Nobody followed the hayseed, so Larsen climbed down out of the tank to stretch his back and unkink his hams. The shotgun lying by the big guy’s cooling body looked kind of interesting close up—nice carvings, a real antique.
Two months later, Larsen lost the shotgun in a poker game to a REMF sergeant from Montana named Lewis Parchwell, leaving him nothing to show for two pair (queens and eights) and almost a week’s straight fighting in the forest except a real distaste for cold weather and a persistent violet light that he saw in the corner of his vision whenever he was very tired.
Walker
Dave Gross
It’s not a nightmare that wakes me but another seizure. I count the sound of passing cars until the spasms stop. When I can stand again, I slouch away from the others who lie twitching in their fractured slumber.
Half an hour later, I stand in front of the mirror for an hour, trying to remember the name of the woman I see there. I roll out when I smell crack smoke from one of the stalls. I can’t be here. I can’t be anywhere the cops might see me, recognize me.
They won’t recognize me unless I give them an excuse to get close. I already look like one of the lost. Two weeks since my last shower, I definitely smell like one.
I shuffle down The Ave, cycling nonsense rhymes through my mind to protect my thoughts from eavesdroppers. The citizens cross the street when they see me coming. One barefoot kid puts a handful of coins and a crumpled bus transfer in my hand. I look at the time stamp and wonder whether there’s anywhere I want to go.
There isn’t.
Beck is slipping away. When she’s gone, all that anyone will remember are the official lies. I need to write down what happened while I can still get it straight.
Soon I will be one of them.
No, I’m kidding myself. The truth is I’ve been one since the day I ran over the homeless guy.
Traffic was insane. Barely past the intersection, Rebecca Eames stopped again. The morning fog was dense for early March. She could barely see the next red light past the line of cars.
At the signal she turned off Pine. Forget the highway, she decided. It was a parking lot by now.
She needed to reach the North Precinct in the next fourteen minutes to look busy before the lieutenant rolled in. Every morning since the transfer, she’d been at her desk when he walked past, saluting over his right eyebrow with two fingers. He did the same thing when he went off shift, only he said, “Be seeing you.”
Rebecca knew the catch-phrase from the old Prisoner TV show, which her father enjoyed while he still lived with her in the condo. She decided it was better not to let on. The lieutenant might think she was kissing his ass, or he might decide she was a geek. If nothing else, he seemed to enjoy his private joke, and Beck decided not to disturb it. Little things like that counted at review time.
It was her own fault she caught rush hour. She shouldn’t have stopped for coffee, or else she should have bought a cup of drip instead of the skinny half-sweet double mocha. Fancy coffee needed to go on the list, along with dinner out and gas for trips out to the Peninsula. If it wouldn’t add another three years to the plan, what she really needed was a car that got better mileage.
She’d circle back to 23rd and cut north across Montlake. Traffic wouldn’t be great there, but it couldn’t be any worse.
She floored the gas, and the big cruiser leaped forward, knocking her latte out of the shallow cup holder. She reached down for the cup and leaned harder on the accelerator.
A man ran in front of the car. Before she could move her foot to the brake, he came up over the hood. She heard his head strike the windshield, and he vanished, leaving only a blood smear on the glass.
Rebecca squealed the car to a halt. She called her location to dispatch, asked for medical assistance, and was out the door.
The man lay across the curb, his faded duster pulled up to reveal rumpled flannel and denim beneath. His hair was a golden brown mop head.
Her first thought was that she’d run over Eddie Vedder. Bobbie Felton had taken her to the Pearl Jam concert at Key Arena a few months earlier. Rebecca had been mesmerized by the singer’s growling baritone, at least when she wasn’t avoiding Bobbie’s persistent attempts to slip his hand into her back pocket.
But only the man’s hair was the same as Eddie Vedder’s. Rebecca’s immediate impression was that he was too good-looking for a homeless man. He had fashion-model cheekbones and an action star’s jaw. His pulse was strong and fast. Rebecca detected no trace of alcohol, but she didn’t like his pallor.
She didn’t like the blood on his ear, either.
Rebecca knelt for a better look at the wound. It wasn’t large, but like all head wounds it bled a lot. He was breathing, thank God. She lifted an eyelid when she heard a sound from the alley he’d run from.
She felt it before she saw anything. Her eyes stung. The pain reminded her of tear gas, which she’d last experienced a couple of years earlier during the WTO protests. But the smell was different, like the sharp pong of mold in an abandoned house.
The thing emerged from the narrow lane, bobbing tentatively like a sagging helium balloon. Rebecca blinked, but the creature appeared blurry even as the image of the nearby buildings remained sharp. What her eye perceived made little sense by the time her brain tried to parse the code.
She had the impression of an enormous lobster with the wings of a damselfly, but with a spongy surface the color of wet pavement and bruises. Its crustacean limbs ended in digits—not claws and definitely not fingers—in which it grasped weird metal objects so tight that they appeared to transfix its flesh. Rebecca winced, thinking the thing resembled a cluster of genital piercings gone septic.
She drew her service revolver and aimed at the center of the mass.
“Halt, Seattle Police!”
She felt ridiculous as soon as she spoke to this object, but it stopped moving forward. With a nauseating start, Rebecca understood it was a living creature, not some papier-mâché Halloween ornament left to molder in the rain.
“Drop your weapon.”
Again she felt vaguely foolish, but her training took over. What was this, some radio-controlled toy? It had to be, but it looked—it smelled—like nothing she had ever seen. Rebecca watched for any sign of aggression and realized she had no idea what that would look like.
Rebecca heard police sirens four or five blocks away.
Beside her, the injured man stirred and mumbled. She could barely understand his words. “…On the twenty-sixth … got to stop it … the kingdom …”
She glanced down at the man and back at the thing. A neon green reflection glimmered on the metal object(s) it held. She knew intuitively that it was not a reflection. It was some sort of emission.
A painful jolt shot through Rebecca’s body. She convulsed, her arms and shoulders twitching. She turned the pistol away from her target, toward the man on the ground.
It was not her will that guided her hands, and the horror of what she was about to do sent a spike of adrenaline through her brain.
She corrected her aim and squeezed off three shots at the thing.
The gas or mold or whatever it was that stung her eyes intensified until she wiped away the tears with her sleeve. When her vision cleared, she could no longer see the thing she’d shot. She knew she’d hit it. She was positive, and she was sure it was the right thing to do. Whatever it was, it was not something that should be here. It was not something that should exist. If it returned, she’d shoot it again.
She held her revolver steady at the place where the thing had been until red and blue police lights lit up the morning fog.
Fourteen hours later, Rebecca’s certainty that she’d done the right thing had all but dissolved. It began to crumble when she tried to explain what she’d seen to the first responders. Howe and Jarvis took one look at her face and s
ent her to the ambulance for an eye wash and a shock blanket. Afterward, she’d hesitated too long in answering Howe’s questions, so they sent her to the hospital along with the homeless man.
The longer she had to think about it, the more Rebecca knew she couldn’t make an honest report without ruining the plan. The moment she described what she’d seen, they’d be drawing blood to test her sobriety. They’d have done it already if she weren’t police.
If only she hadn’t fired, she could have managed the story. The guy had been chased by kids, or another homeless person, or he ran from nothing at all. She didn’t have to lie. She could keep it vague, but three rounds fired demanded a story better than “novelty balloon.”
Administrative duty she could live with, and there was no avoiding that, but she wanted nothing to do with the department shrink, much less IA. Either one of those would also ruin the plan.
No matter how she thought it through, she couldn’t figure out a way to explain those three shots that wouldn’t get her locked up or shut down. Fortunately, no one had been hit. There’d been no blood at the scene and no complaints from the public. So she relied on the escape clause.
“I don’t know,” she told the investigating officer. “Everything is still so confused.”
It was bullshit. The other cop knew it was bullshit. But it was legally acceptable bullshit, a delaying tactic more likely to get you a consolatory drink from the old guard than any serious trouble with IA. All she had to do was get things straight within a day or two.
She surrendered her gun to ballistics, a formality, and bummed a ride home from her partner Patrick. She wanted to talk with the man she’d hit, but despite the leeway she enjoyed as a cop, she knew that wouldn’t be permitted. Fortunately, she and Patrick got along well enough that she could ask for a small favor and expect to receive it. He swung by her apartment after his shift. She heated water for the French press while he filled her in.
“Guy’s a regular on The Ave and Capitol Hill. ID reads Henry Robert Walker, but it’s bogus. The birth date is 14 July 1938. Looks just like him, but there’s no way he’s sixty-two.”
“So it’s his father.” She took the kettle off and let it calm before filling the carafe.
Patrick nodded. “Must be a Social Security scam, although he works construction now and then. Yandel’s looking into it. If Mr. Walker is picking up daddy’s check, it’s not to buy booze. Connie recognizes him from her beat, says he doesn’t seem to drink, and he’s not one of the aggressive panhandlers. No record, just a few warnings for loitering. He stays in various shelters but never spends more than a couple of days at the same one.”
“Is he talking? What’s he say?”
Patrick looked her in the eye for the first time since sitting down. She looked back, letting him try to read her face while she stirred the coffee.
“They’re keeping him awake to monitor his concussion, but he hasn’t said anything about the accident.”
“He said some weird stuff this morning. I just wanted to know what he was running from.”
“Listen, he’s listed as stable. You’re not looking at vehicular homicide.”
“That’s …” Rebecca had been focusing on making sense of what she’d seen and how to explain it. Until now, the enormity of hitting a man with her car had not sunk in. Of course there’d be charges, a citation at least. A civil suit could wipe her out, erasing any memory that she’d even had a plan, yet all she could think about was that impossible thing she’d seen. All she wanted was to know what it was and why it had come to ruin her life. “That’s good news. That he’s stable, I mean. I should send… I don’t know. A card or something.”
“Now, Beck,” he said. “You stay away from him. Just get your statement squared away and let your union rep handle the rest.”
“You’re right,” she said. She pushed down the plunger and poured a cup of coffee, but Patrick waved it away.
“Too late for me. I need to get home to supper.” He hesitated a moment. “Want anything from the store? You know, until you get your car back?”
“No,” said Rebecca. “I’m good.”
Now that the plan was a wash, she decided, there was no reason she couldn’t afford a taxi to the hospital.
Rebecca introduced herself as Sara Walker, Henry’s sister. She held her breath, hoping the duty nurse wouldn’t ask for an ID, but she didn’t. There was no need. Walker was gone. He hadn’t checked himself out, the nurse said, he’d just left.
“He needs to come back here,” she told Rebecca. “The doctors want to monitor him for at least forty-eight hours. If you know where he is …”
“I don’t,” said Rebecca. “But I’ll ask around.”
She started on The Ave, since it was closer. It hadn’t changed as much as she’d expected from the complaints that competition from University Village and Northgate had drawn away shoppers. This summer she knew the city would start repaving, adding street lights and benches. She doubted the makeover would do much good.
Outside the bars, gauntlets of smokers attracted the occasional homeless person hoping to bum a cigarette or some change. Rebecca recognized a few of the older ones from her brief stint on the beat. One with a nicotine stained beard nodded as she walked past. She’d responded to the report of his third heart attack a few years ago. She remembered his name as Abbie and wondered how his liver had held out another year.
A handful of the seeming homeless were middle-class kids panhandling for beer money. They were the ones most likely to become belligerent when refused or ignored. The only time she’d ever had to draw her sidearm was during a dispute between one of these Ave Rats and a motorist whose car he’d tried and failed to jump on his skateboard.
The weight of the Glock 21 under her arm was reassuring. A gift from her brother, she used it for target practice before their monthly beer sessions. Except for its olive color, it was identical to her service pistol. She wanted to avoid flashing her badge. While most of the subjects she was likely to question would recognize her as a cop the moment she spoke, she expected the rest would recognize the lump under her jacket.
She wished she’d brought a photo of Henry Robert Walker, but she couldn’t risk returning to work to open his file. At best, she’d give the impression she was trying to lean on him to absolve her of the accident. At worst, she’d create more suspicion.
Instead, after she’d strolled up to 52nd and back down to 41st, she changed fifty bucks into fives and bought a couple of packs of cigarettes to use as an entrée.
She started with the older indigents, those who’d spent more than a few months on the street. She described Walker and inquired about the names Henry, Hank, Hal, Harry, Robert, Rob, or Bob. Almost everyone claimed to know a man matching the description, hoping Rebecca would offer more incentive to remember more. If she had her detective’s shield, she could request CI payments, but as it was she doled out her cash like a miser.
After forty bucks and three hours, Rebecca learned little more than what Patrick told her earlier. Walker had been around for years, although he didn’t socialize with the other old-timers. He haunted The Ave only once or twice a week, spending the rest of his time near the Market, Belltown, Capitol Hill, and Pioneer Square.
He didn’t claim a spot for his own and avoided trespassing on the claims of other homeless people, sometimes holding a cup as he stood on the sidewalk but never initiating conversation. One Native American woman considered him creepy, but she couldn’t explain why beyond saying that he said too little and watched too much.
“Most days he just stands on the corner. It’s like he’s waiting for someone,” she said. “Or waiting for something to happen.”
She wasn’t the only one reluctant to talk about Walker. Rebecca noticed a reticence in several of the people she questioned. She was used to that, but she had a feeling it was not the result of an aversion to the police, or to questions. It happened only when she saw in their eyes that they knew the man she was asking about.
The day’s events began to weigh on Rebecca. She’d intended to try Belltown and the Market next, but fatigue was clouding her mind. She decided to go home. She could walk Capitol Hill for an hour or so before bed. She reached for her cell to call a taxi, but her habitual frugality kicked in again. Maybe the plan was dead, but it wouldn’t kill her to take the bus back home.
As she approached the stop, Rebecca spotted Abbie putting the touch on a man stepping off the bus. The rider’s goatee and elbow patches gave him a professorial look. Rebecca read that academics were statistically more likely to give, but he waved Abbie away and hustled off to a nearby brewpub. He must not teach statistics, she thought.
She offered Abbie the remaining cigarettes.
“God bless,” he said, bobbing his head in thanks as he stepped away. He caught a glimpse of her face and hesitated. He stood there a moment, cupping the flame of a cheap lighter in his palms. He drew in a lungful, held it a second, and let it out with a pensive expression.
“You’re looking for the walker.”
“Henry Robert Walker,” said Rebecca. “Do you know him?”
Abbie shrugged and took another drag. “Can’t say as I do. But I seen him around. He did me a good turn when I got bit by a mean dog. Let me sleep under a tarp he’d fixed for himself.”
Rebecca took the last two fives out of her purse. “Where did he keep this tarp?”
The Queen and East precincts took turns flushing the squatters out from under the interstate overpasses. No one enjoyed the detail. It wasn’t difficult—the indigents were used to being roused from their nests now and then—but it was pointless. The same people came back after a few days, sometimes only a few hours.
Shotguns v. Cthulhu Page 21