by Jesse Karp
“It may be,” Aaron said over the roof, “that the only thing of value the Librarian actually said was that you should take this opportunity and make it work for you. If you choose to ignore that, that’s your prerogative. You should know that, as a completely impartial observer, I believe you’re being an incredible fool. I just wanted that out in the open between us because”—he bit down hard before he could get it out of his mouth—“because I owe you that much. That said, just drop me off at the nearest town with a bus station. I’ve already bought my tickets.”
Laura gaped at him over the roof, her face blank with surprise until, like paper tossed into a fireplace, it combusted with rage.
“You child,” she said, her volume escalating. “You fucking child. You can’t blind yourself with your own tiny little interests, all your digital shit, now that you got what you wanted.” The curse rang off the storefronts around them, and Aaron could imagine the bookstore owner and the pharmacist leaning toward their windows with prurient fascination. Laura herself was storming around the car toward him now.
“You got the truth you were looking for,” she hammered on, approaching him like a furious parent. For his part, Aaron backed himself up against the car, flinching as she loomed above him. “Dealing with that truth means growing up. And what do grownups do?” She glared at him. “What do they do?”
“Face their problems? Is that the idea?”
“The idea is that grownups take responsibility for more than just themselves. Do you remember what the Librarian said? Remak could change things inside my head, and the Old Man knows about him. Imagine what the Old Man could do with that kind of power. Grownups make a choice not to let a monster devour everything good just because they can shut themselves in a room and pretend they won’t get hurt.”
Her breath was coming so hard that he could feel it on his face, hot and angry.
“This Remak and Mal are already fighting that fight,” he said, but even in his own ears, his voice was that of a weak child’s.
Laura’s body relaxed. She stood back on her heels and stopped looming. Those luminous eyes of hers played across his face like a spotlight.
“Sometimes,” she said in a voice born of concern, of knowledge rather than rage, “people have to do things together. Last time it took four of us to beat this thing, apparently. Now, for all we know, Mal is by himself.” Her voice caught on something sharp that threatened to open it up and make it bleed tears.
“You know what people do when they’re together, Laura?” Aaron said, finding his own strength as she allowed her vulnerability to the surface again. “They lie to each other. They abandon and betray each other.”
“They do that. That’s true. That’s the choice your father made. You can choose a different side, because people also teach you and fight for you and offer you a hand when you don’t think you can hold on a second longer.”
Aaron couldn’t remember the last time he wanted to vomit so much.
“You’re in love with this Mal guy, aren’t you?” he said. “You’re in love with some guy you don’t even know.”
Her eyes went into herself again, for just a moment.
“I do know him,” she breathed, barely loud enough for Aaron to understand it. Then she walked back around the car and got in.
So . . . how did one capitulate to Laura’s demands without appearing to have backed down? Devising a stratagem, Aaron reached down for his door as the lock snapped shut.
The window slid down two inches.
“If you want to go to the next town,” Laura’s voice issued forth, “you can walk.”
For an instant, just a bare instant, he was struck dumb by her ability to actually take a hard line.
“For God’s sake, Laura,” he countered. “Who’s being a child, exactly? Open the damned door.”
The lock clicked, and he pulled open the door and slid in.
“You’re worse than the Librarian,” he said, buckling his seatbelt. “Won’t even come face to face with me.”
“You did come face to face with the Librarian,” Laura said, starting the car and pulling out.
“Not Ms. Hubert,” he corrected. “The Librarian.”
“Ms. Hubert is the Librarian, jackass.”
“She’s— Wait. The Librarian is a guy.”
“A guy would think that,” Laura said, guiding them slowly back the way they had come, around the town square and up through the residences.
“That coward,” Aaron said, shaking his head. “That goddamned coward.”
“Did you want to go back and have a word about it with her?”
Aaron turned back to see the library disappear around the corner.
“Just drive,” he said sullenly.
The Contract
MAL OPENED HIS EYES AND looked through a groggy haze at a room he didn’t recognize. It was illuminated in the color of low rage, moist with heavy humidity. Portraits on the wall looked down with judgmental eyes on the bookcases, the long table, the chairs, all in deep, old wood. Mal flexed his arms, his chest, his back, muscles popping and twitching as though he had been asleep for days.
What had woken Mal up was a tight pressure on his arm. He blinked his eyes until they cleared of gummy sleep and saw Rose’s hand, fingers digging into his bicep through the bloody sleeve of his sweatshirt. But Rose wasn’t looking at him.
A surge of voltage lit up Mal’s spine. Sometimes, in a fight, you took one too many shots to the head, and you left yourself for a while. What brought you back was the sense, beneath a truly conscious level, that danger was close to you. That was what Mal felt now: danger, close to him.
He sat up fast, shaking off the hum of his swirling senses, got his feet on the floor, and stood. Arms surrounded Mal, squeezing tightly with shaky strength. Rose pressed up against him as if he were a life preserver in a roaring sea.
Just two or three long strides away, there was a wheelchair. Within it hunched a figure that was impossibly ancient. Its body was gnarled, its face cracked with the deep lines and folds of untold age. As Mal watched, the figure—the monster—rose. Standing, it straightened its crooked body to reclaim a dignity it hadn’t known in many years.
The Old Man came toward them, his face still a grotesque chaos of fissures, his frame still a frail parody of a functioning body. But in his step, in the roll of his arms, in eyes that nearly lit up the room around him, there was a terrible and perverse vitality.
Mal pushed Rose aside and lunged forward, his right fist firing out in a devastating cross. Mal didn’t know how he ended up in this place, but here was the solution to everything in one good, clean punch.
The snap of flesh against flesh rang off the walls, but to Mal it felt as though he had struck an oncoming truck. Shock waves rang up his arm, emanating from his fist, which had been stopped flat by the Old Man’s upraised hand. The skeletal fingers closed around Mal’s fist and held it tightly. He could feel the bone-splintering pressure of the fingers in his knuckles.
“This is the strength of a dozen minds, boy,” the Old Man said, his hot, rotting breath scrabbling up Mal’s nostrils, the sick intimacy of a diseased lover. “Imagine how powerful I’ll be when it’s a thousand. Or a million.”
With a sudden jerk, the Old Man twisted his wrist, and Mal’s arm was wrenched violently to the side, his body following in a mad tumble across the floor. The Old Man turned and looked down on him.
“Your mind is difficult to penetrate. It’s hard and gray, like metal.” The ancient, cracking lips split into a carnivorous smile. “Nevertheless, I’ll wager you’re very, very scared of me right now.”
Rose threw herself onto Mal, one arm raised up to fend off the Old Man’s vibrant eyes.
“No,” she said. “You promised you would let us go.”
“Did I? I feel like a new man since I agreed to that, a different man. However, I still understand the value of a contract. I will honor the word of it as stated. I said I would not stop you from leaving. So, leave.”
<
br /> Rose pulled at Mal, but he was heedless of her. He came to his feet slowly, appraising his enemy. Once he stood tall, he didn’t move.
“Mal,” Rose said, grasping his arm like a child. “We have to go. We have to.”
But Mal was stone, immovable. It was only a matter of time before he found the right line of attack.
“Mal,” she said through tears of frustration, “Remak sacrificed his life so you could live.”
He looked at her.
“He died for you,” she said, still pulling. “You can’t throw your life away like this.”
Mal looked back up at the Old Man, the hideous face taking the scene in archly. Then Mal let himself be tugged backwards, toward the large double doors. The Old Man watched every step of their progress. Rose heaved the doors open and pulled Mal out into the carpeted hall, into the relief of the amber light.
Roarke, sitting in a chair, rose to immediate attention. Mal instantly shifted his stance to account for the new threat.
“I told them I wouldn’t stop them from leaving, Mr. Roarke,” the Old Man’s commanding new voice reached out into the hall. “So it falls to you. Kill them both.”
Roarke took in the strength of the voice, the glimpse of the impossible figure he got through the doorway with analytical dispassion, and came toward Mal and Rose.
“You’re not with your partner now, Roarke,” Mal said. “You’re not ambushing a man with a concussion anymore.”
The gray man nodded and stepped in.
An ample amount of Rose’s time and concentration over the last year had been devoted to studying Mal. He was broad in the chest and shoulders and slim at the waist, but his bones seemed heavy under the dented flesh and smooth muscle. He seemed at times to lumber when he walked, to tread through life with difficulty, as if constantly pushing against a heavy wind.
She had seen him, too, before his fights, wolfing down a meal before pushing out into the twilight, headed for the space beneath the old stone bridge in the park, where he would bloody his knuckles and do worse to the face of another boy who had put money on his own skill and capability. She had seen him often enough after fights, creaking slowly into bed, favoring bruised and battered limbs, muscles, bones. But she had never actually seen Mal fight. She wanted to see him wired and ready for a fight, or return triumphant or, at least, alive. She did not want to see the work, the pain, the reality of the violence itself.
What shocked her now, what swept her away briefly from the soggy fear bleeding through her body, was how beautiful Mal looked when he fought. The lumbering, the burden, the weight—all of it was gone. He came unbound, looked nearly—what an alien word to apply to Mal—joyful in his movement. His strength was still there, but he had transformed from the weight and heaviness of lead to the supple, graceful movement of mercury as he slid past Roarke’s whipping thrust, slipped beneath his lateral chop and rose up at the man’s side, his own fist flickering like a wasp, catching Roarke across the cheek, leaving a burning welt behind.
Roarke didn’t register the blow. He feinted with an open-handed strike toward Mal’s chin, and when Mal moved in one direction, Roarke’s knee came up to cut him off. The knee caught Mal in the side of his torso, and Rose saw his body rock from the impact, heard him cough out a jolt of pain. He recovered instantly, snapping out two jabs, both deflected by Roarke’s viper-quick hands. Roarke threw back a strike that cracked into Mal’s chest and sent him backpedaling. Roarke pressed in.
Mal threw three humming punches; Roarke beat them all aside with his open hands and struck back with another hammering blow that caught Mal in the chest. Mal backpedaled again, threw a retreating strike, had it deflected, and took a blow to the gut. Roarke, despite his girth and the wedges of muscle straining at the material of his suit, was too quick; inhumanly quick.
Mal flicked his head to the side, tossing off the pain. He threw a strike, but instead of backing up farther, he moved to Roarke’s side. Roarke immediately matched the move, keeping Mal to his front, circling.
They circled, looking for openings, their feet moving carefully, carrying them in slow loops as their hands sped up, flickering. Mal’s shoulders and head darted down, up, under, around. Then, when the circling brought Roarke’s back to Rose, Mal scored a stinging jab off Roarke’s face, followed with a hammering cross.
They continued to circle, probing, striking, parrying, dodging. Again, when Roarke’s back was to her, Mal landed, twice, on Roarke’s head. She could see Roarke working harder to shake it off, trying to stop the circling. But Mal slipped too quickly around, pressed his advantage, forced Roarke’s back to Rose a third time, and landed again.
Rose realized only now what Mal was doing. He kept putting Roarke between the two of them. What had the Old Man said? Fighting to her was a fiction, a story she could scarcely wonder at. Mal knew that, of course. But Roarke did not. Every time his back was to her, he had to take her into account, and his attention would slip just far enough for Mal to come in.
The last blow had shaken Roarke enough that his ripostes were wider, larger. His fist swung, the force of his entire body behind it, a heavy whoosh of wind cutting over Mal’s darting head. Mal came back with two quick jabs, splitting Roarke’s lip and reddening his jaw with blood. But Roarke’s next attack was already set up, and his stiffened hand swept down and chopped into the junction between Mal’s neck and shoulder, bludgeoning him to the ground.
Mal went down but caught himself on hands and knees, immediately rolling forward to avoid Roarke’s kick, then came up so that, once again, Roarke was forced between him and Rose. Mal looked dead in her eyes for just an instant, just long enough to give her a nod.
Her body stiffened; she imagined grabbing a chair, a vase, something to attack Roarke with. But in the end, all she could do was imagine it.
Roarke imagined it, too, though; saw Mal’s signal and imagined her sweeping up from behind with the killing blow. He was forced to split his attention down the middle and blocked Mal’s head strike, but couldn’t stop the pile-driving uppercut from landing in his gut.
Roarke coughed loud, spat blood, and took another shot to the head, and another, three, four. His hands came up to block, made it only halfway. The machine-gun sound of the punches ricocheted off the walls of the hall.
Roarke stumbled and found his balance just in time to catch Mal’s fist, cracking against his temple. He lurched forward, grabbing at Mal’s sweatshirt, looking for an anchor to drag his opponent closer. Mal grabbed the hand, twisted it so that Roarke’s arm was locked in an awkward line. Then Mal brought his fist hammering down on Roarke’s elbow.
The flesh-muffled snapping of arm bone made Rose shriek. Roarke did not. No sound issued from him. He sank to his knees, his eyes holding on to Mal as the arm dropped and dangled uselessly.
Mal’s fist cocked back, ready to shatter Roarke’s face in an explosion of red. He held it there and gave his own somber gaze back to Roarke. Their eyes held each other for just a moment. What, Rose wondered, were they finding in each other?
Mal dropped his fist.
He looked up to find Rose but instead looked past her. She followed his line of sight. The Old Man was standing in the doorway now, close enough to reach out and clutch.
“Run, Mal.” She ran forward and grabbed his hand, pulled him out the door they had entered through. They raced down the tidy hallway, out into the service entrance. Two men in coveralls looked up as Rose and Mal came barreling out.
“Yes, run,” one of them said, with the Old Man’s vibrant voice. “Run if you want to live just a little longer.”
They were out on the sidewalk, careening through crowds of suited people talking on cells, attending their own concerns.
“Run,” said a tall, thin brunette, looking up at them from her cell conversation. “Run to a place where I am not.”
“Soon,” said a child, holding his mother’s hand, “I will be everywhere.”
They ran.
The Visitors
&n
bsp; UNDER THE BLUISH LIGHT OF an overcast morning, Laura and Aaron walked up to the door of a small house set at the edge of the road. Behind the house was a tangle of brush and plants leading toward a distant mountain. Laura tapped the door with her knuckles.
Footsteps approached from the other side and, without the customary questions, the door opened. A girl, barely older than Laura, stood on the other side. Her pert, pretty face was framed by short blond hair. She had five silver rings in her left ear.
“Hi,” she said, in a lively voice that suggested she was eager to receive visitors out in this fairly solitary place.
Aaron opened his mouth to speak, but Laura spoke quickly, to head him off.
“Hi,” she returned brightly. “My name’s Laura Westlake. This is Aaron. Is this Tommy Jericho’s house? Are you Annie?”
“It is and I am,” she said. “How can I help you?”
“That’s kind of complicated, actually,” Laura answered with an exasperated smile. “We’re looking for someone, and I think you might be able to help us. Kind of.”
“Well, why don’t you come in, and we can find out?” Was there a note of apprehensive hopefulness in such quick hospitality, or was this just the country way?
“Thank you so much,” Laura said with sincere weight as they followed Annie the few steps it took to get to a small kitchen table.
Drink offers were politely refused, and Annie settled down across from them at the table. Aaron fidgeted in his chair, uncomfortable in the spare rural setting of the house.
“Are you two from New York?” Annie asked.
“How did you know that?” Aaron shot back, immediately suspicious.
Annie tapped her own forehead, then pointed at Laura, indicating the Mets cap that sat snugly on her head.
“I’m from New York, too,” Annie said. “Tommy is a Yankees fan, but you’re welcome here, anyway,” she said with an irresistible gleam in her eye. Laura felt instinctive warmth for Annie and searched her face, looking for a long-lost friend. There was humor and hope there, but melancholy as well, a fluttery gratitude for unexpected company. Such a large field with such a small house and a small girl in the middle of it.