by Peter Besson
Huntley blinked. She had vanished. One moment she’d been standing before him, the next she was merely light playing with shadows.
He scanned the room, unchanged since the girl’s death all those years ago. The sunlight outside, slanting through the curtains, began to die. Soon it was night. He didn’t turn on a light but sat in darkness. He knew the time had come for him to go and perform one last checkout. Maybe this would be it for him. Maybe he wouldn’t have to come back here and banish her ghost anymore.
Maybe he could close this door behind him forever.
***
Huntley stood behind the glass doors looking out, his feet just shy of the invisible line that used to indicate the boundary between life and death. It didn’t anymore.
Only for Ansel Grayson.
Huntley carried a compact briefcase with him. He’d taken considerable time deciding what to take with him, trying to factor in Mr. Grayson’s proclivities and tastes as he’d come to learn them over the years, but dying had a habit of holding surprises, no matter how many years he’d been intimate with it. Along with his straight razor and a large caliber pistol, he’d brought an assortment of toxins and poisons with the syringe to administer them, in the unlikely case Mr. Grayson preferred to simply fade away, but, considering his last failed attempts at checking out, Huntley wondered if he wasn’t carrying useless weight that might hinder him.
He looked at his portable, a touchscreen device showing a red dot moving at a brisk pace along train tracks on a map. A small countdown next to it raced toward zero.
He would have to leave with what he had. Time was up.
The count hit zero.
Huntley pushed the glass doors open.
At the same moment, a few miles away, Ansel and Nikki had the subway car to themselves. Her head on his shoulder, they shook along with the rhythm of the tracks, until a beep made her open her eyes. Ansel’s wristband blinked 00:00. Not that it mattered anymore.
She searched his eyes, found what she was looking for and gave him a long, desperate kiss as their subway train, now above ground, hurtled through the failing daylight toward its final destination.
***
Port City had lost its significance years ago when the port it had so creatively been named after couldn’t accommodate cargo ships anymore. To reduce the number of trips and save fuel, ships had mutated over the years into massive floating cities with unprecedented displacement, and so another port was built further up north, where there was no rocky bay to blast through and no shallow inlet waters to deepen.
Watching the large ships trawl by, Port City had slipped into a derelict slumber it would never awaken from. Its buildings had sunk further and further under the crushing weight of time, and the holes in concrete and asphalt had become gaping maws. The saltwater blown in from the ocean by the frequent storms coated half the city, leaving it wet and frigid in summer and rusting its steel bones in winter. If Port City had any use left, it seemed to be as the overflow for all the things time washed up on its shores. It lived a shadow existence, not dead yet, but dying; not alive, but subsisting on the backwash from the larger city up the coast, the detritus accumulating here, scattered with the tides of fortune.
Ansel and Nikki, their bodies creaking cold from their endless ride on the subway train, their minds a blur from lack of sleep, wandered aimlessly through the city, his bracelet beeping a steady rhythm. Dark house façades stacked all around them, the occasional illuminated window throwing a rectangle of light they diligently stepped around. The streets were empty, everyone having fled the cold dampness of the night.
They rounded a corner, their arms around each other, bracing against the wind howling down the street. At the far end they were able to make out the ocean, an expansive rolling mass of shadowy waves crested gold by the sun just glinting over the horizon as it began its work of chasing night across the globe.
Heads down, crossing the street, they almost failed to see a police cruiser idling a few blocks down, two officers inside, hot coffee steaming up the windshield. Ansel half-turned his face, resisting the urge to cover his face with both hands and run. By now, every police station in the country would have been sent an alert with a picture of him, and Port City would have been put on special notice. His wristband could be tracked to within a couple of feet, and Ansel was sure they’d followed his movements ever since the countdown had reached zero. Taking the wristband off was impossible short of cutting off the hand—something he’d have to consider soon if he wanted to live.
They slid around another corner, out of view of the police cruiser. Nikki peered into a shop window, both hands shielding against reflections. It was a hardware store with most hardware long gone. Dust collected on shelves and the few tools remaining were too obscure to find any more use.
Down the street, Ansel didn’t have any more luck. One closed shop after another. The only businesses not boarded up appeared to be liquor stores. Even if he’d decided to take his hand off, the best he could hope for now would be to get a bottle of whiskey, down it and then gnaw the damn thing off. With every passing second, he could sense the world tighten around him, his list of options shrinking down to the zero he was wearing on his wrist.
“Ansel.”
They’d almost missed the salvage yard, despite its size. It was just a wall that didn’t seem to end, until Nikki’s curiosity got the better of her and she’d made Ansel give her a push up where there was a sizable gap in the razor wire curling along the top. After a yelp of excitement, she’d pulled Ansel up and together they’d jumped down into the yard.
It was the last stop of many things. Scavenged cars piled on top of one another. Stacks of stoves, fridges, washing machines, dryers—all jumbled together, doors ajar, glass broken, reduced to their constituent parts. Huge, undefinable metal pieces thrown about like dead dinosaurs, speaking of the times before they had become obsolete. Ansel and Nikki rifled through the stockpile of forgotten items, trying to keep their rising panic bottled up.
“Looking for something?” said a voice from behind them.
They froze. Without looking up, Ansel tightened his grip around the sharp piece of metal he’d picked up in the hope it would be of use with his wristband.
“Not gonna help you if you crack an old man’s head.”
Ansel dropped the piece of metal. He wasn’t going to start killing on his presumably last day on Earth. They turned around. An old man in grimy overalls stood before them, wiping his hands with a rag so filthy it only managed to make them even more dirty. His face was weathered from living near the ocean, a landscape of deep creases and folds, with a pair of lively green eyes sparkling at them, measuring them. “You at zero?” he asked.
Ansel and Nikki exchanged a glance. If they weren’t going to at least knock the old geezer out, this was the end. Every irregular check-out had to be reported; besides, the reward for turning one in was substantial, insuring an almost one-hundred-percent recapture rate.
With a sigh, Ansel held up his wrist. The bracelet beeped its steady rhythm of zero.
“You know you’re wasting your time here. Can’t cut through that with anything.” The yard owner motioned for Ansel to step closer. He grabbed Ansel’s wrist and inspected the band. “Haven’t seen one of those in years. You were checked in for quite a while?”
“Twelve years.”
“You got money?”
“Not on us.”
“Ah.” He looked them both over. “You seem like a nice enough couple, but I think you know you won’t make it.”
“Yes,” Nikki said. “Yes, we will. Make it. How much money do you need?” She had no idea where she would get any. Perhaps her father would, once more, dig into his deep pockets—about as likely as Ansel’s wristband snapping open out of sheer goodwill, but she had to try. “Tell me.”
The yard owner sighed. He glanced up, checking the sky as if divining for guidance. The rolling clouds blushed a slight pink, edging them
out of darkness. “I don’t know why so many of you wind up here. Maybe because it’s the last stop on the Metro. Maybe it’s the ocean. Seems to collect them. Wash up here and that’s the end of it.” The underside of the clouds glowed darker, reddish. “Sun’s up fairly soon. You should go to the beach. Watch it rise. About as pretty as it gets.”
The yard owner pulled out what looked to Ansel like a lock pick set, only this one seemed self-made, with keys in weird shapes, with hooks and barbs and springs. Ansel tried to yank his hand back, but the yard owner took hold of him with a surprising show of strength. “There’s nothing you can do,” he said. “Can’t get on an airplane. By now, all the police’s got your pictures. There’s checkpoints around every major Metro stop. No ships leaving anywhere from here.” He fumbled with Ansel’s wristband, sticking this or that key into the hidden keyhole on the inside. “You can run, but for how much longer?”
With a faint click, Ansel’s bracelet opened and fell to the ground.
“One day you just want to stop running. Can’t outrun what’s coming. Besides, in the end, we all get what’s ours.” He regarded Nikki and Ansel, not unkindly. “Good luck to you.” He turned and walked off.
They stood in shocked silence. With a simple twist of the key, the old man had given Ansel a chance; the certain death he’d been carrying lay on the ground, and the person who’d handed him another life as if it were a party favor just strolled off.
“Masterson?” Ansel called.
The yard owner turned, one final time, an inscrutable expression on his face, regarding Nikki and Ansel, giving no indication he understood or that he’d even heard Ansel, before he nodded almost imperceptibly, turned again, and disappeared into the mountain of junk.
Ansel and Nikki stood blinking. Somehow they knew that he was gone—poof—as if he’d never existed, that they wouldn’t find him even if they ran after him; they knew this would have to stay a mystery for them—if it had been Masterson who’d given Ansel his only way to escape, or only a compassionate scrap yard owner with too many keys.
Ansel rubbed his wrist, where the only reminder of his fetter was a strip of white skin that hadn’t seen sunlight in over a decade.
“This feels… weird.”
“Weird is good. Let’s go.” Nikki grabbed his hand and dragged him down the corridor between towering rusted metal.
***
Masterson, or whoever he was, had been kind enough to leave the front gate open and spare them the mad scramble up the wall. Now they were rushing down a trash-strewn street, trying to outrun dawn. Nikki stopped here and there at a parked car, peered into the driver’s-side window, frowned, then raced to the next one, checked again, punched the glass in frustration, rushed off, panic rising. Finally she reached a ruin of a car, more rust than metal, a relic from times when miles per gallon weren’t a deciding factor in purchase decisions for a vehicle but only a curious factoid about the size of the engine.
“This one,” Nikki said.
“Are you sure? Do you know—”
Nikki smashed the driver’s-side window with her elbow.
“No time.” She reached in, unlocked the door and slid into the driver’s seat in one fluid motion. A quick, reassuring check with her hands under the dash and she dove under the steering column where she ripped off the cover, exposing the wires underneath. She grabbed them all and resolutely tore them out.
“That a habit of yours?” Ansel had drawn closer, transfixed by this whole new side of her.
“You learn a lot when you’re bored.” She connected two wires. The starter cranked and the car coughed, belched smoke, and reluctantly sprang to life. “Get in!” Nikki threw the passenger door open.
Ansel jumped in.
Nikki crunched the car into gear. It buckled, shook itself like a wet dog as if surprised to be driven this early, or even at all, but then the wreck lurched forward, tires squealing, barely missing the bumper of the car in front of it.
Nikki smiled broadly at Ansel, gunning the engine. Ansel grinned back. They let the look linger, savoring the lightness of movement, the promise of freedom, then Nikki turned back and—
“Shit!” She stepped on the brakes with both feet. The car screeched to a halt, painting smoking rubber tracks on the asphalt.
Standing in the middle of the street, blocking their way.
Huntley.
“Shit,” Nikki said.
There wasn’t enough room to go around Huntley. They would have to make a choice.
Either back up or run him over.
The car idled, sputtering drops of water from the exhaust.
Huntley held something in his hand they hadn’t noticed before. Now he was bringing it up, leveling it at them.
A pistol. Cocked.
“Shit shit double shit!”
That would be triple, Ansel thought nonsensically, before he was heaved forward as Nikki rammed the car into reverse. With screaming tires, the hunk of metal shot backwards, doubling Ansel over with the sudden acceleration. Bullet holes appeared on the windshield where Ansel’s head had been a fraction of a second earlier as Huntley began to calmly shoot at them. Shattered glass blew inward as more and more holes blossomed on the windshield, and buzzing slugs of metal stitched Ansel’s headrest, wandering down.
“Jesus!” Ansel curled up into a ball.
Nikki pulled the handbrake and yanked the steering wheel. The car swerved, spun, then crashed into a parked car. As Nikki slammed the car into gear again, the passenger’s-side window exploded in an onslaught of bullets.
“Oh dear god!” Ansel ducked down again.
Nikki floored it. In a cloud of smoke, the car catapulted forward.
Huntley aimed with poise, steadied his breathing, and then he shot once, twice, and both tires on Ansel’s side of the car—having had enough of the constant back and forth and now, being shot at—decided to disintegrate in a burst of rubber. The car careened to the side, uncontrolled, and crashed with vehemence into cars parked on the opposite side. Smoke belched out from under the hood.
That was it for the old car.
Nikki gasped for air. The impact had driven the steering wheel into her chest with startling force. She didn’t think she’d broken anything, but breathing hurt like hell. She glanced over to check on Ansel and stifled a cry. Blood ran down his face from a cut across his forehead. He looked like he’d been scalped and was still in shock from the vicious assault by the unseen natives.
“Are you okay? Ansel? Ansel!”
The passenger’s-side door was yanked open. There was Huntley, leveling the gun at Ansel’s temple.
Ansel shook his head, trying to clear it. It felt like it’d been stuffed full of cotton balls, shrink-wrapped, and finally submerged in biting cold water. And there was a red film covering everything. Why was everything red?
Ansel looked up. “Oh, hey. Huntley. Didn’t see you there.”
“Mr. Grayson. If you’d be so kind as to step out of the vehicle.”
Ansel wiped at his forehead. His hand came back bloody. That explained the red tint. It didn’t hurt. He might later on, he thought, but from the way his situation seemed to be developing, there wasn’t much of a ‘later on.’ ‘This right here’ might be all there was for him.
He looked at Nikki. There was unfettered panic in her eyes, but Ansel smiled at her, a sad, wounded smile. It would be okay. They’d tried, but they should have known it would end this way. There was no Masterson. There was only an old guy in a scrap yard. Nobody escaped.
We all checked out.
He motioned her to stay put and clambered out of the car, his body stiff from shock and promised pain. That would hurt tomo—
No. Ansel smiled grimly. No, it wouldn’t. Nothing would hurt tomorrow. At least he had that going for him.
He stumbled to his feet. Huntley, always the professional, stayed just out of striking distance, gun aimed. Not that Ansel was in any position to strike anything.
>
At the end of the street, the cop car was idling, blue-and-red lights flashing. Huntley waved at the two police officers standing by; everything under control here. The cops tipped their hats and got back into their cruiser. The blue-and-red lights of the police car stopped flashing and it rolled sluggishly around a corner.
A slow pitter-patter of blood from Ansel’s cut collected at his feet. It felt good, standing there, bleeding, having the cold air brush against the open wound, the warm blood running down the side of his face, the simple act of breathing. Ansel had never known the world to have that sort of… crispness, that kind of luminance about it.