by Ike Hamill
“Oh gosh, I forgot,” said Lynne. “I’ll do them now." She didn’t get up.
Barry turned his attention back to Letterman, who silently waved and smiled and clapped as he delivered his monologue. Carrie just looked down at the bowl of popcorn and pushed around the kernels, sorting through them.
“So you’re taking the cat to work now?” asked Carrie.
“Yeah,” said Lynne.
“Where’s the litter box?” asked Carrie. “And how can you bring a pet to a new job like that? What is your job, anyway?”
Lynne avoided the last questions by focusing on the first. She and Carrie had done this dance ever since high school. Carrie always opened with a soft question, a throwaway, so she could slip in her real complaint, couched with a question mark. Usually they centered on Lynne’s dating choices. “What exactly do you expect from a guy like that?” But it could be anything that Carrie thought Lynne was doing wrong with her life. When she didn’t want to deal with the rude questions, Lynne always focused on the soft opener.
“He doesn’t need a litter box,” she said. “I take him out several times a day and that’s enough. He can easily make it through the night without needing to go. You remember, I used to have that gray cat that was the same way.”
“And your boss doesn’t mind?” asked Carrie.
“That my cat doesn’t have a litter box?” asked Lynne. Before Carrie could answer, Lynne found the energy to get up. “I’ll start with the trash,” she said.
HER CHORES DIDN’T TAKE LONG AT ALL. Barry had snuck around and done some of them already. His offer in front of Carrie had merely been theater. Lynne reminded herself to do something nice for him when she got a chance. Before long she was back in her room with a bowl of sugar free ice cream lifted from Carrie’s deep supply. She didn’t fear gaining weight—Lynne had always enjoyed a lightning-fast metabolism—but thought sugar would wake her up and she needed to sleep.
The days in this new job just kept getting tougher and tougher.
Lynne brought up a local magazine show on her video recorder. It was one of Lynne’s guilty-pleasure shows, where the noon anchor and the weekend weather lady tried to increase their cachet by talking about Portland events. Lynne loved it. She was fascinated by the people and places she recognized from Portland right there on the television—automatically more important because of the medium. Today they had a special guest, and Lynne was let down. All her wonderful local stuff had been kidnapped by Gregory.
After the introduction, the anchor wasted no time asking what was on everyone’s mind—“So, Gregory, we’re delighted to have you on, and we were all captivated by your appearance on another regional affiliate the other day, but I’ve got to ask: to what do we owe this honor? Are you moving to our humble city?” asked Rob.
Gregory smiled and touched Kelly’s knee—“It is a lovely city, Kelly, but I’m just here conducting some business. I’m actually in town to find someone.”
“Oh?” asked Kelly.
“That’s right,” said Gregory. “I’m convinced she’s going to be critically important to the evolution of our species in the next few months.”
“Evolution? Really?” asked Rob.
Lynne looked up from her ice cream. This was the part she loved. This was the part where Rob and Kelly looked like total dopes in front of anyone with any amount of celebrity. Her enjoyment was tempered by Gregory—ever-present Gregory—but it was still delicious.
“That’s right, Rob,” said Gregory. “We have big changes coming. A period of great enlightenment and a challenge for the whole race—that’s what’s coming. Our lease on these delicate bodies is approaching term.”
“When?” asked Kelly.
“Very soon now,” said Gregory. “But I don’t know precisely when.”
“And this person you’re looking for, what is their role exactly?” asked Rob.
“Good question,” said Kelly.
“She can see,” said Gregory. He looked directly into the camera. His eyes were wide and honest. “She can see the supernatural things. She can see inhuman and subhuman. She can see my true nature.”
Lynne felt a blush rising. Her pulse quickened as Gregory spoke.
“She’s using her gift right now to make money. But that’s not her true calling. Soon she’ll fall in league with dark forces, and she’ll be the mother of our day of reckoning,” said Gregory.
Lynne looked around nervously. It seemed that Gregory was peering right through the TV, directly into her eyes.
“This woman has already seen things that would make you question your sanity, but she’s unfazed. She works with a partner, and they’re investigating The Passage, but not to learn, only to profit. She’s driven by money, and money alone. She doesn’t even try to convince herself otherwise.”
“Who is she?” asked Kelly.
Gregory took his eyes off the camera, breaking his stare with Lynne—“I can’t tell yet,” he said. “And that’s the main reason I’ve come here this afternoon.”
Lynne took a deep breath and paused the playback, exercising her control over the situation, and showing her dominance. Domi was curled up next to the pillow. Lynne stretched out on her bed and reclined before letting Gregory continue. She shouldn’t have bothered—she was right back on the edge of her bed almost immediately.
“Her name is Lisa, or Laurel, or Linda,” said Gregory. Lynne jumped up. “No, none of those are right, but it’s something like that. She lives north of Portland, in one of the towns along 295, but I can’t tell exactly which one. Somewhere between here and Augusta though.”
Lynne massaged her scalp with one hand. Her other was poised on the remote, as if she could just pause him for the whole world if she needed.
“She just started working for the dark forces, but she’s learning fast. She’s witnessing all kinds of things that she didn’t know were real. She’s opening her mind to a whole new world of possibilities,” said Gregory. “I’ve never tried to use my influence to affect what people do, but I’m calling out now to all the people who have sworn allegiance to me. Don’t follow me because of what I am, but consider what I know: this woman is dangerous to the future of mankind.”
“What are you suggesting people do?” asked Kelly. She started to look really nervous now, almost panicked. She glanced off-camera towards the stage manager. Rob didn’t seem concerned at all. He smiled and nodded, as if everything Gregory said made perfect sense to him.
“I just want to talk to this woman,” said Gregory. “That’s all I’m asking for. Keep your eyes open, everyone. One of you brave citizens will know who I’m talking about. Remember, don’t bother to call unless the person you know has just taken a new job with a partner, lives along 295 between Portland and Augusta, and has the ability to see paranormal activity. If you call about someone who doesn’t match these criteria then you’re just going to slow the search, and that would make me very unhappy. What’s the number?” Gregory asked Kelly.
“Pardon?” asked Kelly.
“What’s the number they should call if they have a tip for me?” he asked. “Your news line, or front desk, or something?”
“Oh,” said Kelly. She looked off-camera again, moving her lips and then beginning to nod. “We’ll have to get that to you in a moment,” Kelly said to Gregory and then she repeated the instructions to the camera.
Rob nodded and smiled.
“I’ll wait,” said Gregory.
Kelly tried to engage him in some more questions while the station management debated whether to give out their phone number for Gregory’s use. The enigmatic guest stayed doggedly on-message. He just kept repeating the few details he knew about the woman he sought.
Lynne skipped forward until the station had relented and granted permission for Gregory to use their tip line for his information gathering. They gave out their phone number and Gregory implored the audience to call immediately with information about the woman he was trying to track down.
Lynne lowe
red the volume of the television and tried to get her racing pulse under control. Her first instinct was pure panic—she wanted to flee into the night. She never had any doubt that he was looking for her. All the details he listed described her exactly. Her panic quietly broke as she realized how very few people had access to all those details. Plenty of people knew where she lived and that she had just started a new job, but none among those knew about her special abilities or her partner. In fact, Jenko and a few people at her employer were probably the only ones who would recognize her from Gregory’s description. And those people were not concerned with what Gregory wanted.
She caught her breath and thought her heart would stop when something scratched at the window. Lynne jumped, startled, and paused the TV. Her shoulders relaxed when she saw familiar eyes outside the window.
“What?” she asked.
The little boy hissed and sneered—“I told you leave Donna alone.”
“Okay, first of all, what’s your name?” asked Lynne.
“Huh?” asked the boy.
She rolled her eyes, exasperated. “Name—what’s … your … name?” she asked.
“I’m Felix,” said the boy, “and you’d better not bother Donna or…”
“Wait,” Lynne held up a hand, “just wait. One, I don’t care. Two, I didn’t mess with Donna. Three, get the hell out of here.”
“You’ll be sorry,” said Felix. He faded back away from the screen, out of the light and his finger came up to the screen.
“Okay,” said Lynne. She got up and walked right by the window. She threw up the next sash and lift the screen out of the way. Without a word she picked up Domitius and put him on the sill. “Get him,” she ordered the cat. The black cat was gone in a flash without even a growl.
Little Felix screamed as he retreated. Lynne heard her cat hiss and yowl.
“Domitius!” Lynne called after a few seconds. The cat appeared right away and Lynne closed and latched both windows. She fell asleep curled up with the cat, but tossed and turned all night, pushing Domi out of the bed. Her dream repeated, like a sick dream. Zombie people, dressed in rags like the Harvester, chased her down the empty highway. They drove her towards the city, towards Gregory.
Chapter 5
Outed
“DID YOU SEE THE NEWS THIS MORNING?” asked Jenko as soon as she settled into the passenger seat. She pushed Domi to the back seat and he curled up back there with no protest at all.
“No,” said Lynne. She’d very carefully avoided all possible sources of news that morning. After a long night of paralyzing fear, the last thing she wanted was a checkup on the woman-hunt geared towards her.
“About Gregory? You didn’t hear?” asked Jenko.
“What?” Lynne’s heart fell. It was going to be exactly what she feared, she knew it. He’d probably had another revelation and given everyone her exactly name and address; she could sense the other shoe about to drop. “What did he say?”
“No, it’s not what he said,” said Jenko. “Well, it kinda is. They say he translated a message from space.”
“Yeah?” she asked. Lynne let out a slow sigh. Apparently, Gregory’s woman-hunt news had been overshadowed by this new story. “So what are we up to today?” This was her heavy-handed attempt to change the subject. It’s not that she wasn’t interested, but just talking about Gregory kept leading her mind back to his call to track her down. If not her, she admitted to herself, then at least someone remarkably similar to her. And if she made that connection, there was no telling what someone else would think.
“Just some more possible Passage,” said Jenko. He seemed to get the point immediately—she was done talking about Gregory. He filled her in on all the pertinent details as they wound down the slow country road to their destination. Lynne found the briefing very helpful and wondered why Jenko had never bothered to get her up to speed before any of the other cases.
“You still don’t know enough,” said Jenko. “We’ll be able to communicate quite well with each other very soon, but you still don’t know enough to have an intelligent conversation on the way to a case. This one is different though. It should be pretty similar to what we saw on your first day.”
LYNNE AND JENKO STOOD SIDE-BY-SIDE in the arch between the living room and the dining room. Near the head of the dinner table, a corpse was sprawled out on the floor. One hand stretched towards the refrigerator.
“Sir?” Jenko asked. He addressed the man at the stove who was cooking on a small stove-top griddle. “Sir?”
The man popped out one of his earbuds and half-turned to face Jenko, but kept his eyes on the cooking pancake. “Yeah?”
“How long has he been this way?” asked Jenko.
“Uh, I don’t know, week maybe? I just got back a few days ago,” said the man.
Jenko grunted, staring down at the corpse. Lynne understood her partner’s disgust. Lynne imagined that the smell alone would haunt her forever. The corpse was a couple feet feet from the chair. Lynne traced the direction his arm was pointed and guessed that the man had tried to reach the phone mounted above the counter. That was about all she could tell from the scene, everything else was masked by decay.
A puddle of thick, black goo surrounded the body, and around that lay a perimeter of dead flies and other insects. The torso was still bloated, but the exposed flesh on the arms and face had sloughed towards the floor, dissolving at the edges.
Lynne fixated on the hair, half black, half silver. The skin had almost peeled away from the skull; it looked like an ill-fitting wig.
Still, the smell.
In the room right next door, the man at the stove finished his preparation, turned off the burner and addressed Lynne and Jenko—“I’m going to take these out to the family room. We don’t eat in here anymore, because of the… you know. Anyways, if you need anything, I’m over that way.” He pointed with his plate.
“Do you mind if I use your bathroom?” Lynne asked.
“No, sure. Right down there.”
“Thanks,” said Lynne. She left Jenko standing over the body and found her way into the small hallway half-bath. Her first move was for the air freshener. The stink of rot had invaded all the rooms. Lynne stared in the mirror and tried to make sense of the face looking back at her. She had bags under her eyes, and faint lines around her mouth that she didn’t recognize. She wondered: is this how I always look? Are my eyes too close together? Do people have to learn to like me for my personality because my face is so hard to look at?
Lynne ran the cold water and splashed it on the back of her neck. Gregory had rattled her—made her feel like a complete criminal—and she didn’t know why.
“Because you’re a fake,” she said into the mirror. The woman looking back—an older version of herself—didn’t object or try to argue. They reached a quick agreement. Lynne was a fake. It didn’t matter whether or not she had convinced herself that she could somehow see Sparkle, and see Ribbons, and attract the dedication of a weird, co-dependent cat who waited out in the car. None of these things made her feel valuable to the Veyermin Group. She didn’t acknowledge the inherent contradiction—how could she simultaneously be a fake and still be dangerous enough to warrant Gregory’s scrutiny?
She finger-combed her hair back into place and exited the bathroom.
Jenko wasn’t standing near the corpse anymore. Lynne saw him outside through one of the windows. She exited through the kitchen and found him standing on the back patio.
“What’s out here?” she asked.
“Nothing,” said Jenko. “That’s kinda the point.”
“Pretty bad, huh?” she asked.
“I know this is unprofessional, but scenes like that just get the best of me,” said Jenko.
“Yeah?” asked Lynne. Now she was unsure why Jenko was so upset. She decided to just let him talk.
“Most of the time I figure that people do whatever they’ll do and get what they deserve. That guy though, who knows about him? He could have just choke
d on a grape, or had a mild heart attack. There’s no good oversight on cause of death anymore. As long as the body doesn’t have obvious signs of violence, the police just figure they can’t touch the thing or the family will sue. I bet they didn’t spend more than two minutes out here investigating that death.”
“Yeah?” prompted Lynne.
“I mean how sick is that? You just leave your dad or grandfather or whatever? Because he might, might be The Passage? What’s next? Is CPR going to be illegal?”
“Yeah,” said Lynne.
Jenko stood for another minute, just looking over the back yard to to the tops of the trees, and then he turned and strode back over to the door.
“Did you see anything in there?” he asked Lynne. “Anything at all?”
“Nope,” said Lynne.
“Okay,” said Jenko. “Let me just get my samples and we’ll get the hell out of here.”
“Okay,” said Lynne.
THEIR TRIP TO THE NEXT CASE was long and silent. Lynne drove and Jenko looked out his window. Domi perched on the center console and watched Lynne’s hands as she drove. It was almost a relief for Lynne to get to the next corpse. She’d felt very uncomfortable sharing the car with this mute version of Jenko.
The next case couldn’t have been more different. Just to the right of the front door, a coffin was set up in the living room, surrounded by flowers. It looked like a wake had been held just minutes before their arrival, but the girl had been dead for over a week. Aside from the woman who answered the door, four people sat in folding metal chairs, facing the casket. Lynne thought they looked like a pack of freshman alcoholics attending their first meeting. The dead girl was their guest speaker.
Jenko kept his voice hushed for the introductions, but forcefully asked that he and Lynne get some time alone with Allison, the deceased. The mourners were reticent, but eventually filed out to the back deck. They stood in a tight circle out on the deck, holding cups of coffee and looking even more like a support group meeting. Lynne and Jenko stood side-by-side next to the coffin and looked down at the dead girl.