Ryan regarded the window above the sink. The flowers on the sill were dead.
Slowly, he turned to her, and she started.
“Oh my God, Ryan.”
His eyes were glassy yellow slits, filled with bloodshot. The left oozed slick pus and had nearly closed right up. Already his darkened skin had begun to peel. His lips were cracked and split with open sores.
Lynn went to hold him, but he held up a hand.
He shook his head. “Ma.”
“Ryan—”
“The mirror,” he said.
She checked herself in the corridor and gasped. Her eyes were starkly yellowed like his, although not nearly so shot with blood. Her usual skin of cream was now deeply tanned, and while there was some peeling, she suffered none of the sores.
Her daughter joined her and followed her into the kitchen. The girl was turning her tanned hands over and back in the light now. Even now—especially now—it was difficult to tell them apart.
When Lee saw her brother, her eyes grew. She drew back slightly. Then she started to him, but as he did with their mother, he waved her off.
“Can you see, Rye?”
“Not so good. It burns like crazy. But I’ll be all right. It looks a lot worse than it feels.” He paused. “My legs feel like rubber.”
“Here,” Lynn said, her voice wavering. She took a cloth from a drawer, wet it under the tap, and handed it to her son. Ryan began to wipe the pus from his eye.
He read her mind, casting a telling glance. “Ma.”
“Ma,” Lee echoed. “Ohhh, Ma.”
Lynn could only hug her. Both had tears welling.
“It’s the only explanation,” Ryan said.
“But he’s not even here,” Lynn replied. Her eyes were clearly searching. “I mean … is he?”
Ryan shook his head. “I checked a few minutes ago.” He gazed about the room. “All this … this is just the icing.”
“The time,” Lynn said knowingly, and he nodded. She looked to the clock on the wall. Still it was impossible to believe only minutes had passed since the sun had set. And yet, now, seeing how dark it really was, all she could do was nod in acceptance. She damned herself. Until this moment, she had tried so hard to believe what Kain had written, all he had told her. Yet still she had had her doubts … doubted him. But no more.
“I don’t understand,” Lee said anxiously. She looked to her brother first, then to her mother.
“The bubble,” Ryan explained. “Remember what Kain told us? How only things inside it are affected?”
Lee nodded as it came to her. “The sun’s outside.”
“Exactly,” Ryan said. “Think about it. If he Turned at noon, you wouldn’t notice ten minutes. He’d have to go back an hour or so. Maybe longer. But at sundown? Even a few minutes would do this … twilight doesn’t last very long. He might be able to stop time—turn it back, even—but he can’t stop the Earth from turning.”
“I didn’t think he could do that,” Lee-Anne said. “That far, I mean.”
Lynn looked at Ryan—he read the diary, knew the truth—but said nothing; her mind was racing. She recalled Kain’s story of Titanic; the horrific tale of what had happened in Newark. How that as a boy he had pressed his grandfather on the question of How far, and the old man had, for the greater good, told him not to ask. He could Turn a moment; a minute; an hour; even a week. And so the question now burned in her: How far?
But more importantly: Why.
“There’s more,” Ryan said. “When I was outside … the air … it smells like garbage.”
“Why, Ma? Why would he do it? And what happened to everything?”
Lynn regarded her daughter with trepidation. “I don’t know, honey. I just—” She had to pause, had to try to calm herself down. “He must have had a good reason.”
She thought: Brikker. Brikker is here.
She was nearly in a panic. She rushed to the phone in the corridor and dialed. She waited and waited. Slammed the receiver down.
Her parents were dead.
Kain had been captured; she knew that the truth. He had Turned, trying to buy some time; he had tried to save them, had tried to escape. And if that were so, then yes, he would have needed far more than a few minutes. And if that were so, and there had been no answer in this timeline—
Her parents were dead.
Ryan and Lee looked to each other. They seemed so fragile, so afraid. She went to them. “I need you to be strong,” she said, nearly breaking. They both nodded.
She looked about. At the flowers, at the food … at her children. What a dark new world they had inherited. What a frightening one.
A poisoned one.
Her daughter’s question sent her reeling. What happened to everything?
She didn’t know; how could she. All she really knew was that this wasn’t the way things were supposed to be. She could only imagine how far the Turn had reached.
“Ripples,” she said, under her breath.
“Ma?”
“Something Kain said,” Lynn told Lee. “It’s not important right now.”
“We have to find him,” Ryan said.
“Lee. Call Grampa.” She could cling to hope. It was all she had.
The girl tried the phone. Let it ring and ring. No answer.
“Help me with these,” Lynn said hurriedly, and she handed Ryan a plate from the table. She didn’t know what else to do. She examined the spoiled food, and her stomach turned again. She wanted it gone. All of it. She needed time to think. And—
As quickly as she had taken a knife in her hand, a cold finger teased the nape of her neck.
“Ma? You all right?”
Lynn set the thing down. Holding it—touching it—terrified her. For her very life, she could not know why.
“Ma.”
Lynn turned away from her son. He called again, and again she did not hear him. Almost instinctively she stepped round the table to the rear window, as if a small voice in the back of her mind had pushed her. She placed her face close to the glass, cupped her hands round her yellowed eyes, and peered into the darkness.
She was trembling.
~ 4
Al Hembruff rocked lazily on the veranda. He had lost sight of his friend now, had followed his dark form along that open road for as long as his old eyes could. He rubbed them again. His night-peepers weren’t as good as they used to be (his day-peepers were bad enough), and right now, they itched like a bugger. Things were hazy. It was the damnedest thing. It had come all of a sudden. His bum leg was acting up, too, aching nearly as bad as when that stump-stupid shepherd had sunk its fangs into him in the first place. Fact was, his whole body ached, as if he’d spent a week slaving in the fields.
He drew a swig from his Schlitz. He had to force it back, the stale brew more than a little off. He regarded the can quizzically, as if it were spiked with horse piss. Still, he took another shot just the same.
He rocked for a spell, wondering about Kain Richards and fretting about his little girl, when it struck him. He must have dozed off. And by the look of it, he’d been out for a while. He checked his watch. He must have forgotten to wind it again. He put it to his ear and found its pulse strong. He called through the screen door, asked what time it was, and when his wife said nine-thirty, he took to that inky sky again. He asked if she’d said ten-thirty, and she called him a deaf old coot.
Georgia joined him and stood next to him.
“Dark already,” she said, sounding slightly surprised.
“You sure it’s nine-thirty?”
“That’s what the clock says, Allan.”
“Strange …” He paused. “I’ll set it with the radio tonight.”
She set a frail hand on his shoulder. She gave him a tender squeeze, and then another; always twice in times of trial. She probably didn’t know that he knew.
“… Did he say anything? Where he might go?”
He shook his head. The less anyone knew, the better.
“I’ll say a prayer for him,” she said.
She set down the vase she was carrying on the white iron table there. All the flowers were dead.
“I’ve got three others just like this. They’re—” She put her hands on her hips. “Well. You could at least look at them, Allan.”
He sighed as he set his beer beside them. He regarded them with mild interest, yet he had to admit, in all his years he’d never seen anything like it. This was one for the books.
“Throw ’em out,” he said dimly.
“Throw ’em out,” she parroted. “That’s all you can say?”
“They’re dead.”
“But all of them?”
“Call the cops,” he said. “We got flowers down.”
“Hmph.”
He motioned to her. “You mind the Doc, little lady.”
“I know,” she lamented, regarding her forearms. They were usually quite pale and were now just a hint this side of lobster. “I was in the garden today. I guess a little longer than I should have, all right? But I suppose a little color won’t kill me.”
“A little fun won’t either.” He stroked her bottom.
“Allan.”
He rubbed his eyes. His vision had cleared a little, but things were still murky. He blinked a few times.
She looked at him closely. “You’re all weepy.”
He started to rub them again.
“Stop that,” she told him. He didn’t, and she swatted him playfully. “You’ll just make it worse.”
“… You can’t be cold.”
She was stroking her arms.
“Just my achy old bones,” she told him, with a bit of a sigh. She turned to go in and stopped. She asked if he wanted anything before she went up.
“No thanks, darlin’.”
She asked what that awful smell was.
“Search me.” Lingering in that dead heat, the night held the sickening decay of a dump on a sweltering afternoon. It was barely there, but it held its own. Maybe that was why his eyes were so damned itchy.
“I should close all the windows,” she said.
“Cripes. We’ll roast, woman. Lea-leave them—”
His voice cut short. He grimaced, his face contorting oddly, and he brought a quick hand to his tightening chest. His lips quivered. He drew a sharp breath and held it for just a moment, then let it out slowly, oh so slowly. A chill coursed through him. His arm fell numb. He knew straight off this was a mild one, but also knew—and had never told her, never would—that the mild ones weren’t so mild any more.
“Allan …”
He stirred. Sometimes, you just had to wait things out; for the rains to come and the corn to grow. So he sat, sat as he always did, calm and composed. But when it didn’t pass, and it was clear it wasn’t going to for a spell, his partner reached into his shirt pocket and drew his pills for him. Just as she started to hand him one, the telephone rang.
“Get that,” he said, and took the pill in his hand.
“It can wait.”
He knew enough not to argue. He slipped the pill into his mouth and waited for the magic. It came painfully slowly in the minutes that followed, and he wondered how much longer that magic would hold. I can count the days by the pills, he thought. By the pills.
“It’s ringing again,” he said, weakly.
“They’ll call back.” She kissed him lovingly on the cheek. She knelt beside him and took his big hand in hers. Her delicate hands barely covered two of his fingers.
She looked at him fearfully. Her eyes said it all.
“Cripes, woman. Stop lookin’ at me like they’re measurin’ me for a pine box.”
When she didn’t respond—he hadn’t seen that look of dismay since his very first attack some ten years back, in this very chair right here—he placed a hand to her cheek. He stroked it gently, and she stirred at his warmth. Then, with all of his love, he spoke, spoke as soft as silk. And meant every word.
“I’m fine, darlin’. We’re fine.”
Georgia Hembruff sniffled. Let the tears come. She broke an anxious chuckle and set her head in his lap. She almost said something, but hugged her Allan instead.
It was the last time she did.
~ 5
“—I’m a comin’, headin’ low, I know the time is right—”
Ray Bishop sang as he poured, his voice below a whisper. He had always loved Freddie Price, and this little ditty had been his favorite. It seemed a shame to simply hum it now, and besides, the voices had sent a request. He worked quickly but deliberately, his years as a mechanic preparing him for this most important of tasks. His leg ached to be sure, the blood still coming, but the pain served him. He worked faster.
He hobbled round the rear of the farmhouse and set the gas down gently.
“Can’t you hear it, can’t you, please? It’s my heart, it aim to please—”
Panic struck him as he ducked below the window. The bitch was there, her face pressed up against the glass. He didn’t think she saw him.
—sing, Ray, SING—
He shut them out. He almost screamed.
He drew his knife and readied it. If she came—or if that good for nothing son of his came in her stead—he would finish them quickly.
She finally moved from the window, and he chanced a peek inside. She had her back to him, was talking to the boy. His eyes were all messed up. The one was closed right up. His face looked like hell.
His little girl was there, too. His little girl.
His heart raced ever faster; his chest heaved in a rush. He tried to settle himself, tried to temper his want. But the Voice would have none of it.
Ray Bishop drew his matches.
All it took was the one.
~ 6
Her daughter sent Lynn Bishop into a panic.
Her baby’s eyes, her precious blues, were riddled with terror. Her body trembled, and her lips quivered.
Lynn remembered now. Remembered it all.
She whirled round and saw the flames clawing up the window. She turned back to her daughter, to her son.
The boy stood transfixed, as if caught in some horrible memory. That lone eye spoke volumes.
“He killed Beaks,” he said flatly, almost dreamily. “He killed—”
“RYAN!”
This was enough to shake him.
“Ma—”
“He’s out there,” Lynn stammered. “He’s—”
And that’s when the back door blasted open.
~ 7
Ben Caldwell saw the black car.
He saw it in his mind, saw it idling in the dark with its lights beaming at him. Saw that hulk of a man bring his gun to bear. It had been the last thing he had ever seen.
He saw this, over and over, as he stood in the road. Only when he saw those rising flames in the distance did he snap from his stupor.
A cold finger ran the nape of his neck. It all came back to him in a rush. All of it and more.
Brikker, he thought. That’s what Rye had told him. The guy who was after the Ghost.
His mind reeled. He was too late to stop the fire from starting again. He could only pray he wasn’t too late to stop them.
Ben climbed into the cab as the flames lit up the sky. He threw the truck into gear and stepped on the gas.
~ 8
“Christ Almighty.”
“… Allan?”
Georgia Hembruff raised her head from her husband’s lap; she had just dozed off. The tears had barely dried on her cheeks.
Big Al steeled himself against the pain. It came hard—maybe the hardest yet—but he would not give in to it. He started to rise, and his wife saw him struggle. Saw his fear. She tried to settle him back in his chair.
“Allan! What in Heaven’s name—”
The big man forced himself up. His left arm swung and upset the table, the beer and the flowers crashing to the deck.
“ALLAN—”
She saw it now as he hobbled past her.
“Call the
fire department.”
She stood frozen, fragile hands cupped over lips.
“DAMMIT, WOMAN! MOVE!”
He watched her go and then headed down the steps. He was almost halfway to his flatbed when he realized he didn’t have his keys. He turned back to the house, and just as he did, nearly collapsed. He staggered, clutching his chest. He slipped to his knees. All he could do was watch the fire grow.
“ALLAN!”
Already she was out the door and on her way to him.
“Keys—”
“You can’t—”
“Get … my KEYS.”
Tears were pouring from Georgia Hembruff’s eyes. She turned quickly, moved her old bones as fast as she could, and when she returned, keys in hand, she had to help him up.
“Call them,” he told her, and she nodded.
Al Hembruff managed to his truck and climbed inside. He looked to the sky and felt his heart cry. And then, with tears welling, he turned to his wife, for what he knew was the last time.
He could only mouth the words through the glass.
I love you.
~ 9
The black car eased left, onto the dark country road that would lead to its destruction.
“I’m telling you,” Christensen said again, tapping his wristwatch. He’d been going on about it for nearly five minutes. “No way it’s nine-thirty.”
Strong glanced up at the rear-view, then brought his focus to bear on the road. He seemed quite put off with the private’s obsession with the current time, even more put off by the ill color of his own bloodshot eyes.
“Just shut the fuck up.”
The private almost said something about the lieutenant’s skin, which was quite unpalatable now, what with its odd blister here and there. The young man studied it a moment longer, then simply turned and faced the road.
Velvet Rain - A Dark Thriller Page 45