Fallout

by S D Wasley

  “Was it you who was using that?” Albion asked, nodding at the book.

  “Yeah. I’m having a recurring dream.”

  “What is it?”

  “Hands coming through a wall.”

  His eyes widened. “Creepy. What did the book say about it?”

  I relayed what I could remember from the book’s interpretation and Albion snorted. “I don’t hold with that symbolic crap when it comes to dreams. Have you read any Freud? He was the business when it came to dreams.”

  “What did Freud say?”

  “He never thought dream symbols were universal. Your dreams and the things in them come directly from your social, emotional, and sexual experiences. Your unconscious smooshes them up together so you can process them in your sleep. What experiences have you had recently with hands?” He couldn’t resist waggling his eyebrows, realising how it sounded as he spoke the words.

  My thoughts flew to Cain and my face heated up. But then there were little Patrick’s fingers flying over the screen of his game device. And Léon touching my cheek. I twisted my mouth. “Too many things. Everyone uses their hands all the time.”

  “What about walls, then?”

  “The walls are going up for the new Marie-Celeste,” I suggested. “Uh ... I sleep in a bedroom with walls.” I gave him a quick grin and he rolled his eyes. Then I froze, remembering the room under Gaunt House and Patrick’s words: Wall. Talk.

  Albion slurped his coffee. “Have you been back to that place you used to go? Something House?”

  I became cautious. “Gaunt House.”

  “Yeah. That had crumbling walls. What happened there?” He gave me a searching look. “You and Cain ... walls. Hands. Hmmm?”

  “Shut up!” I said, trying to laugh, my cheeks aflame. “We didn’t ... there.” Well, not that time, I added inwardly.

  “Maybe a bit of PTSD?”

  “A bit of what?”

  “Post-traumatic stress disorder. You get it after a bad experience.”

  “Can’t be that, then.” I shot at him.

  “Ooh, do tell!” Albion’s eyes sparkled. “He’s good in bed then?”

  “What do you think?”

  He mulled it over. “Actually, I must admit the guy looks like he’d be good in bed. He’s got a certain intensity.”

  I got flustered again but simultaneously, deep inside, I gloated. Intensity didn’t even begin to cover it when it came to Cain.

  “I wonder what Léon would be like,” Albion mused. “Goddamn. He’s smokin’ hot.” He eyed me. “Francesca, you are missing such an opportunity with him. His eyes alone could trigger an org―”

  “Albion!” I threw the closest thing to me at his head, luckily just a cushion.

  “I’m serious. If I can’t have him you should. Although if there’s any way you could convince him to give me a try, don’t hold back.”

  “And how would Ethan feel about that?”

  Albion shrugged. “Don’t bring boring old reality back into the discussion.” He watched me, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “We were talking about you, you know.”

  “What?”

  “When we were speaking French yesterday. Me and Léon. He asked me about you.”

  I frowned. “That’s not cool. I was right there, for God’s sake.”

  “Frankie, play normal girl for a moment. You’re supposed to say ‘Ooooh what did he say?’”

  “I don’t care what he said.” It wasn’t exactly true but I honestly didn’t like that they’d had a discussion about me right under my nose.

  “You’re weird,” my cousin declared. “You don’t want to know what he said, then?”

  My curiosity got the better of me. “Okay, what did he say?”

  “First he just asked how I knew French and about my European trip, but then he changed the subject. He wanted to know if your paramour treats you properly.”

  I frowned. “Paramour? You mean Cain?”

  Albion nodded. “Léon seemed concerned about you. Your wellbeing.” He observed me closely. “Why is that, Frankie?”

  “How the hell should I know?” I was half-angry at Léon and half-worried. I didn’t know myself why he would think that about me and Cain.

  “I think he’s trying to work out how solid you two are.”

  “Extremely solid. Brick wall solid.”

  “Walls crumble sometimes. Like your dream.”

  “Not this wall,” I retorted, but my faithful sense of inferiority nagged at me: I’ll never be like Cain. He’ll tire of me.

  “So defensive. Freud would have a field day. Okay, so how about this?” Albion jumped back into decoding my dream. “Say you have PTSD about your bust up with stalky Cain a few months back. Walls. You were hiding, remember? In the house mainly. And hands coming through walls ... Cain broke into your room. Huh?”

  God, maybe he was right. I shook my head, resisting. “He never wanted to hurt or scare me. He just wanted to find me. He knew I was confused and making a stupid choice.”

  “Maybe he should have respected your choice, stupid or not.”

  Why did Albion have to be so annoyingly right and at the same time so completely unable to understand? I sipped my tea and didn’t answer.

  “I’d bet my right arm you have PTSD,” he said with an air of smug wisdom.

  The only thing I could possibly have PTSD over, I thought, is getting shot in the arm. Or maybe that guy who died on the night Jude transformed. I got a flash of shining, rain-slicked alley walls and the man’s hands pounding Jude’s chest, breaking ribs, and had to take a breath to calm myself. Maybe there was something to Albion’s theory after all.

  I drove out to the small, depressing-looking mobile home village where Cain lived and scurried past the group of cabins where itinerant workers stayed during shearing season. They ogled me and muttered amongst themselves. I kept my eyes forward and hoped they wouldn’t call out. I found Cain levelling the ground near some stacks of paving bricks. His face brightened when he saw me.

  “Come here, beautiful girl.” He opened his arms for a hug, kissing my mouth, but keeping his hands off me so as not to get me dirty. Like I cared. Although he was dusty and hot from the physical work he still smelled amazing, like the freshest of summer mornings.

  “Can I help?” I said.

  He shook his head. “Just keep me company.”

  I perched on a nearby picnic table and watched him shift dirt and level it out with rollers and then a hose.

  “This isn’t exactly what I had in mind for our date,” he said, clattering a shovel into an empty wheelbarrow.

  I laughed. “No, a bit less of you doing backbreaking work would be preferable.”

  “This paving job is my rent and supplies from the park store for the week,” he said with a smile.

  I wished I could give him a load of money so he didn’t have to work. Didn’t he work hard enough trying to rescue people whose lines of fate were leading them somewhere terrible? My father gave me a generous allowance and he probably wouldn’t even notice if an amount of, say, around what Cain was paying in weekly rent, were to disappear on a regular basis. But when I’d hinted at it once before Cain hadn’t been receptive, to put it mildly.

  While he worked he asked about my college classes and told me the other jobs he’d been working on around the park. He sure did a lot for them. When he mentioned Bernadette, the manager, he sounded affectionate, as though she were a family member. She always talked him up to her friends in town who paid Cain to do handyman work for them, as well. I helped him unstrap the paver stacks but he wouldn’t let me do any actual work.

  “Bernadette would string me up if she saw I was letting my girlfriend help,” he explained with a laugh, but I was pretty sure he just didn’t want me to have to exert myself.

  The sky threatened rain while Cain lay paving bricks in a neat pattern.

  “What do you think about Léon coming along to help at the Market Lake event?” he asked unexpectedly.

/>   “What about it?”

  He didn’t reply for a moment, maybe because he was lining up pavers. “We’ve told him so much about what we do and how we work.”

  That didn’t really answer my question. “Yeah, we have, but he already knows most of it because he does the same thing. Well, tries to, anyway. And he and Owen have been talking online for months.”

  “Do you think there’s any chance he might be lying? About having the gift?” he added in a low voice, pausing in his work for a moment to search my face.

  I shook my head. “I have no doubt in my mind that he has the same kind of gift as you.”

  Cain didn’t answer for a few moments, resuming work. “What makes you so sure?”

  “I can see it.” Again, no answer. “Don’t you trust him, Cain?”

  “It’s not that I don’t trust him. We just don’t know him. We should be careful about what we reveal.”

  Did he mean me ... that I should be careful about what I tell Léon?

  “I really think he just wants to learn from us.” I opened my mouth to tell Cain what Léon had told me of the unsolved church fire premonitions from his group, but then hesitated. Was that my story to tell? Perhaps there was a reason Léon didn’t tell the others about it. No, I decided, I could tell Cain. It would probably make him feel better about Léon’s intentions.

  Before I could say anything a mousey-haired woman who looked to be around her fifties came into view, wearing a sloppy cardigan. She stopped to look at Cain bent over his work.

  “Lookin’ good,” she said, and gave me a wink that indicated she wasn’t only talking about Cain’s paving prowess. I couldn’t help a smile. “That’s some fine work you’re doing, Cain. Hell of a job, yeah?”

  “It’s not too bad,” he said, straightening up. “Bernadette, this is Frankie.”

  “Frankie Carver, yep,” she said, appraising me. “Your daddy’s a special man, all right.”

  I had no reply to this so I simply nodded a greeting. Cain gave me a small smile. She looked back and forth between me and Cain a few times as something seemed to dawn on her. My heart sank. I hoped she wasn’t one of those fans who emailed with Dad or stalked him on social media. The last thing I needed was for him to find out about Cain through the well-meaning manager at the local trailer park.

  “Cain’s a good worker, all right,” she merely said, “although you’re not going to like the next job on the list, son.”

  Cain glanced at her, apprehensive. “It’s not the bathrooms again?”

  She hawed a laugh. “No, thank the good Lord. But someone’s sicked up on the floor of the outdoor kitchen. The shearing boys must’ve had too much to drink last night.”

  Cain muttered under his breath. “That sounds sort of urgent,” he said aloud.

  “Naw, it’s okay. So long as it’s sorted out by four p.m. when people might want to use the kitchen for cooking their dinner. I’ve locked the gate for now.” She glanced at me. “I give him all the worst jobs but the boy’s such a saint, he never even complains.”

  She took off and I looked at Cain, half-embarrassed and half-amused at her use of the word saint. He couldn’t restrain a grin. Several fat raindrops hit the dirt and Cain dusted off his hands, coming closer to where I sat on the picnic bench.

  “About Léon―” I started, but Cain shrugged.

  “Forget him. I need a break.”

  From what, I wondered. Work or talking about Léon? “You must be worn out.”

  “Not really.” He gave me a meaningful look. “I know just the thing that will re-energise me.”

  I pretended innocence. “A sports drink?”

  “Better than that. More refreshing.”

  I tried not to smile. “What could be more refreshing than a sports drink?”

  “What I have in mind is much more refreshing,” he insisted, moving closer and nudging my knees apart so he could stand in between them. My pulse escalated. “Sweeter, tastier, hotter ...”

  “You don’t want anything hot,” I said, inhaling the scent of his skin as his face came close to mine. “Not if you’re after refreshment.”

  He looked into my eyes and everything in my peripheral vision fell away, the dark tunnel beckoning. “I know exactly what I want.”

  Chapter 7: Mutationis

  Léon made a seventh at our nightly meetings. An eighth if you counted me, I guess. Nadine appeared to be crushing on him badly. She stared at him whenever he wasn’t looking her way and checked his reaction every time she said something. I was embarrassed for her and remembered what I’d been like before Cain let me in on their secret. Hopefully I’d never made it that obvious.

  Despite us being on alert, the full vision of Market Lake didn’t come. In fact, Liz didn’t have any visions at all that week. Helen had several; the boys again, a flash of blue, a woman walking near a lake. Nothing new, really. I must have checked my phone twenty or thirty times a day while I attended classes, ready to abandon college and join in a rescue effort at any moment. There was a birthday brunch for Vanessa on Saturday, agonisingly drawn out with Albion, Ethan, and Vanessa getting hammered on champagne while they made what they considered hilarious jokes about my sister and Muscular Matt from her gym. I had an assignment to finish so I excused myself when the brunch sprawled into mid-afternoon.

  It was Sunday morning when I got the call from Cain, early. Albion hadn’t even come to wake me for a cooked breakfast at the Main House yet.

  “Liz had the full vision,” he told me, no preamble.

  “Oh, my God!” I jumped up, pulling at my pyjamas.

  “It’s okay, we don’t need to be there until this afternoon. It happens just before sunset.”

  “Oh.” I slowed down. “Where’s Liz now?”

  “She’s doing her grocery shopping.”

  “She’s what?”

  Cain chuckled at my reaction. “Yes.”

  “Have you seen her? What happened to her?”

  “She was attacked by a psychotic patient during her shift last night. He lunged at her with a syringe full of tranquilliser―”

  “Holy shit!”

  “She’s okay. She doesn’t remember the transformation. Some of the drug went into her bloodstream and she hit the floor but she was only drowsy for a short while. They sent her home after they felt she was back to normal. She woke up this morning and realised she’d transformed. She had the vision and called me.”

  I was silent, processing. “She’s honestly gone grocery shopping?”

  “This is Liz, Francesca. She’s practical. And she was hungry.”

  “Oh.” I laughed. “Of course.”

  We planned to meet later in the day. Liz wanted us to assemble at her place since it was closest to Market Lake. Cain actually apologised that our date wasn’t going to happen yet again. I laughed at him and tried to convince him I honestly didn’t mind. Then Cain needed to phone the others so we said goodbye. I sat in my bed, wide awake after the phone call, wondering what to do to distract myself. Dammit, I should have taken copies of the transcriptions in our ledger. I seized my laptop and searched maps of Market Lake, trying to memorise the position of the kiosk and bridge, the jogging trail, and the parking lot. Grabbing a pencil and paper, I drew diagrams to see if I could work out the best way to prevent what was trying to happen to those kids. Maybe if Owen and Nadine positioned themselves here ... and Cain over here ... and Jude and Liz over there ... I’d made a detailed plan before I remembered that I was a normal and five super beings were lined up to prevent the incident. Six if you counted Léon. I was pretty sure they had it covered.

  A message came through on my phone from an unknown number.

  Are you awake? It’s Léon here.

  I replied: Yes.

  He phoned. “Good morning, Francesca. Has Cain spoken to you?”

  “Yes, I know what’s going on.”

  “Owen told me. This is wonderful for Liz, yes?”

  “Are you coming this afternoon?”

 
“Of course.” He paused. “A favour, Francesca?”

  “Uh, yeah?”

  “I feel the need to attend Mass. Could you direct me to a local cathedral?”

  I considered, concealing my surprise. “Let me see. There’s the Church of the Holy Ascension. That’s not far from you, I don’t think. Then there’s Saint Francis of Assisi. That’s the one I used to go to.”

  “I will go to the closest, I suppose. Unless ... will you come with me?”

  “Me? That’s really not my thing anymore.”

  A silence. “Please?”

  Something genuine and plaintive in Léon’s voice pulled at me. “I don’t attend Mass these days,” I attempted, trailing off foolishly.

  “I need to be with someone who understands.”

  Now that I could relate to. I weakened and finally folded. “I guess it’s only an hour. And I’m awake now.”

  There was such relief in his voice I couldn’t resent him. “Thank you, a thousand times thanks! You are a true friend. Where shall I meet you?”

  “Walk to the end of Tucker Street,” I told him. “I’ll meet you on the corner of Main Street. Nine-twenty a.m.”

  “I’ll see you there,” Léon said.

  Albion gaped in horrified amusement when I reluctantly confessed where I was going.

  “Uh-huh,” he said, giving me a deep stare. “Going to church with Léon McHottie-Hot.”

  I sighed. “It’s so not like that. He’s Catholic. Wanted to go to Mass. Didn’t know where to go.”

  Albion smirked. “Smooth move, Léon,” was his only remark.

  So at nine I found myself driving to the rendezvous point to collect Léon. To attend the Church of the Holy Ascension. For Sunday morning Mass. I shook my head at myself and sipped from my travel mug of coffee. When I picked Léon up his presence in the little pink car unnerved me. I hoped he’d keep his hands to himself this time, keenly aware of his powerful body sitting alongside me, smelling clean and faintly spicy. He’d dressed up for the occasion, attired in neat trousers and a buttoned shirt.