Waking Lazarus

by T. L. Hines

  Nicole shushed her with a wave of her hand as she walked toward the counter. ‘‘We’ll start the diets tomorrow. Today,’’ she said as she opened the bag and pulled out a giant fritter, ‘‘we eat whatever we want.’’

  ‘‘The good old Tomorrow Diet,’’ Rachel said, taking the treat. ‘‘I’ve been on it many a time.’’

  Nicole took a bite of her maple bar, made a face at Rachel, and smiled. Then she wiped glaze from the corner of her mouth with a finger. ‘‘I’m sure you probably heard by now,’’ Nicole said as she studied the jewelry Rachel was sorting.

  ‘‘The accident?’’ Rachel asked. Nicole nodded. ‘‘Yeah, I’ve heard from three or four people this morning.’’

  ‘‘So what was your Boo Radley doing there?’’ asked Nicole before taking another bite.

  Rachel winced. Boo Radley. She herself had called Ron that, an inside joke with Nicole and a few other friends. At the time it seemed spot-on funny. Now it just seemed mean-spirited. But that wasn’t the only reason she winced. Of the people who had been in to chat about the accident, none had mentioned Ron’s involvement. This was news. ‘‘Ron was there?’’

  Nicole caught the look and narrowed her eyebrows. ‘‘Oh, I thought you knew. I mean, you said you knew.’’

  ‘‘About the accident, yes. About Ron being there, no.’’

  ‘‘He was.’’

  ‘‘Was he . . . you know, part of the accident?’’

  ‘‘No, no, nothing like that. In fact, he was helping.’’

  Rachel sighed. Before last night, Ron had made sense. He had always been aggravating, but at least he made sense. She always knew what he was going to do, and she was comfortable with what he was: a scared, paranoid has-been. Or, more properly, a never-was.

  But as of last night, her crystal-clear image of Ron was starting to blur at the edges. She didn’t like this new current of unpredictability. It made her feel like she was trying to navigate logs bobbing in a river. ‘‘Helping?’’ Rachel said, realizing she was having a hard time breathing. She had no idea why. ‘‘Like doing CPR or something?’’

  ‘‘Something.’’

  Rachel bit her lip as she thought, a habit from her childhood that still persisted.

  ‘‘You’re biting your lip again,’’ Nicole said. ‘‘That’s never good.’’

  ‘‘I know. It’s just, last night, Ron was acting kinda strange.’’

  Nicole covered her mouth, trying to hide her grin. ‘‘That’s hilarious, Rachel,’’ she laughed.

  ‘‘Okay, yeah. What I mean is, he was acting not strange. And that’s the strange part, you know?’’

  Nicole shrugged. ‘‘If you say so.’’ Nicole switched gears, talking about the new Ultra Man toy Bradley wanted and how expensive it was. But Rachel found her mind wandering, occupied by the newly evolving mystery known as Ron Gress.

  Chief Odum’s fear continued to build and simmer in his stomach: sometime soon, it’s going to happen here. He knew it. The abductions crisscrossed south-central Montana and northern Wyoming, and it was obvious Red Lodge had to be on that path of violence sometime.

  Odum looked at the accident report from the previous night again. It was a straightforward case with no need to issue a citation to the driver. The pedestrian was jaywalking at 11:00 P.M., and the driver was at least five miles per hour under the speed limit. Still, something about it set off Odum’s internal alarms. Something happened he didn’t know about, or it didn’t happen quite the way the witnesses explained it, or . . . something. His intuition told him it centered around the first guy on the scene—he picked up the report again and looked at the name—Ron Gress. Janitor. Just passing by. Mr.Gress had no idea who the victim was, had never seen him before.

  Odum felt those things were probably true enough. But he also felt a key piece was missing, something that would put a whole new spin on the accident and open new doors. That spin was somewhere beneath the surface, if he could just do a bit of digging.

  And digging was something he was happy to do.

  Odum pushed away the report. It was only ten o’clock in the morning, but he needed to get out of his office for a few minutes. Inside the station, even in autumn, the air could become thick, heavy, stale. He needed to step out, clear his mind, refresh his perspective a bit.

  So he left his office, walked down the hallway and out the front door. He realized he’d been holding his breath since leaving the building, waiting to breathe in the air tinged with pine and mountain breeze.

  The moment he stepped outside, he felt his body starting to relax. His gaze caught the coffee cart across the street. A nice double latte would clear the cobwebs more than a few quick breaths outside. He went down the steps and walked across the street, a slow, practiced amble he’d perfected over the years as a cop. Odum knew that actually being a police officer was only part of the battle for respect on the street. One had to cultivate a certain swaggering presence, a confidence that made people think you always knew more than you really did.

  As he approached the cart, he casually looked down the street at the small landscaped area in front of the bank. He saw two kids playing, crawling on one of the concrete benches and then jumping off.

  ‘‘What can I get for you?’’ It was the girl at the coffee cart, asking for his order. A sign on the cart said today’s special was the KILLER BEE LATTE. Whatever that was.

  He held up a finger, asking her to wait, then turned his attention back to the kids. No adult was around that he could see, and the kids weren’t more than eight or nine years old. One boy, one girl. Likely brother and sister. The mother or father was probably in the bank, but why? Why would a parent go into the bank and leave the kids outside? Especially now.

  He turned back to the coffee cart girl. ‘‘Those kids been alone long?’’ he asked, cocking his head down the street. She looked toward the kids, then turned back to Odum and shrugged. ‘‘First I’ve seen ’em.’’

  Odom stepped from the cart, headed toward the children, and bent down to talk to them. Both kids saw his uniform, then relaxed. He knew the uniform was an important part of the total effect— much like the practiced swagger—and he liked wearing it.

  ‘‘Where’s your mommy?’’ he asked. On cue, the door of the bank swung open, and a harried woman came out. When she saw Odum, a bit of shock registered in her eyes.

  Then, recognition. She knew him, of course. In a small town like Red Lodge, everyone recognized the Chief of Police, even if they didn’t know him personally. ‘‘Chief, uh, Odum. Is everything okay?’’ she asked.

  He wanted to rip into her for leaving her kids outside, but he knew it was much more effective to play Officer Friendly. ‘‘No problem at all, ma’am. I was just checking on your kids here,’’ he said with a smile.

  ‘‘Did they do something?’’

  ‘‘No, no. Not at all. It’s just that—’’ he glanced at the kids and could tell that both of them were listening to what he said—‘‘I’m sure you’ve been reading the paper and watching the TV lately. I think you know what I mean.’’

  Her face was a scramble as she tried to figure out Odum’s cryptic message. Understanding then clicked in her eyes, and she—unconsciously, Odum was sure—pulled both of her kids close. ‘‘Yes, yes. I know what you mean, Officer.’’

  He smiled broadly and held out his hand. ‘‘No harm done,’’ he said. ‘‘I’d just like to make sure it stays that way.’’

  She took his hand and shook it gingerly. ‘‘Yes. Thank you.’’

  Odum nodded to the kids, turned, and started walking back to the coffee cart. The smile slid from his face. It was an evil world, filled with monsters that bite. Kids understood this, but adults always forgot.

  Until they were bitten.

  He bypassed the coffee cart and crossed the street back to the station. Suddenly the air outside didn’t seem so fresh, and thoughts of a double latte sickened him.

  After work, Jude pointed his car toward home and let the day e
vaporate from his mind. That was no problem, as the day had been fairly uneventful in his janitorial guise. Same old Frank-isms from his supervisor, same old schedule, same old everything.

  The difficulty was getting last night out of his mind. Even today, he half wondered if the vision that battered his thoughts had been a dream, some odd part of his paranoia bubbling to the surface. It looked like a dream, with the odd negative colors and burnt tints painting the faces and photos of people he didn’t know (but did know) sliding past him. It felt like a dream.

  But it wasn’t a dream. He knew it.

  And, it had been accompanied by that wretched taste of copper. A shiver raced through him as he thought about it. It was, after all, the taste of death—the taste on his lips each time he’d died and returned from the Other Side, a sickening reminder of things he’d tried so desperately to forget.

  He turned down Broadway and drove slowly, taking a small detour on his way home. He wanted to drive by the accident site, to see if he could find . . . something. A connection he’d missed, a key part of the picture he hadn’t seen the previous night.

  Jude pulled over and parallel parked, then opened his door to get out. He walked the whole block, watching, waiting. Nothing happened. No copper in the mouth, no Kodachrome visions. He stopped, looked at the street where the truck had plowed into the hapless pedestrian. The vision played in his mind again: a dark figure, rimmed in light, taking flight and spinning, then landing with a wet thud.

  Jude realized now he didn’t know the man’s name. He had been told, if that was the right word, the names of the wife and daughter— and even the granddaughter—but not the man’s. All those thoughts in his mind weren’t his thoughts, and that disturbed him. Made him think of something deeper than paranoia. But no, told wasn’t the right word. He hadn’t heard any voices, outside or inside of his head. He just knew all those things, as if they were past facts already stored in his memory. Even though all of it, especially that blather about being forgiven, had come from somewhere else.

  He looked up the street to the next block. Rachel’s jewelry store was there, just a few doors from the Red Lodge Cafe. Maybe he could just . . .

  The Red Lodge Cafe. Jude looked up at the neon tipi sign, flickering orange and blue, as a circuit connected inside his mind. A sign. Kristina had told him to look for a sign. Last night, before the accident, the taste of copper had filled his mouth. Yes, it was the taste of death. But maybe it wasn’t just the taste of death for him.

  Maybe he was tasting the deaths of others.

  That would explain, in an odd way, why he’d tasted copper before seeing the accident. But now, as he stared at the bright neon colors of the Red Lodge Cafe, his mind told him what he’d been missing before: He had tasted copper more than once the previous night.

  Jude walked up the street toward the cafe, knowing he needed to talk to a waitress.

  13

  LEAKING

  He was leaking. That was the only word he could think of to describe the sensation. Leaking. He had always been so careful to separate the work of the Normal from the work of the Hunter, but now a small fissure had opened between the two, and the only place he felt safe was in his basement root cellar, surrounded by earth and burlap.

  Maybe something organic. A brain tumor, perhaps, eating away at his medulla oblongata and clouding his judgment, blurring the line between the two. It had always been so easy to turn on one side and turn off the other, keeping each side an impenetrable dike to the outside world.

  But not now.

  Earlier that day, for the first time, the Normal had followed a possible Quarry. Hadn’t trapped and taken the Quarry; things had stopped long before that. But the Normal had actually tracked a Quarry inside the grocery store, considering what hunting might be like. That easily, the Normal slipped. That easily, the levee was breached.

  And if you didn’t stop a leak right away, you were just setting yourself up to drown.

  He sat down and hooked the electrodes to his temple. He would need a more powerful shock this time, something more sustained to keep him immune from human emotions and depravations. Something to keep the Normal from becoming interested in the work of the Hunter.

  Pavlov had trained his dogs to salivate at the sound of a dinner bell; he had gone further and trained his own mind to shear itself into two separate entities by simple will.

  Obviously, some remedial work was needed. A bit of negative reinforcement.

  His behavior modification system was homemade. One of a kind, his own design. Simple enough to build with some parts from the local hardware store, along with a little knowledge of electricity.

  He clenched his teeth, then threw the switch and embraced the current. The machine had been integral to becoming. The machine would make sure he would keep becoming.

  The leak would be plugged.

  14

  SAVING

  Jude opened the door to the Red Lodge Cafe, then hurried inside. It was just rolling into dinner hour, and the place had more people in it than he had ever seen. Of course, Jude was usually here when he knew other people wouldn’t be.

  He scanned the cafe, looking for her. Behind the counter a gray-haired waitress poured a cup of coffee for a grizzled man sitting at the counter. Out of the kitchen bounced a large, middle-aged waitress, bearing a couple specials of the day.

  Those were the only two. She wasn’t here.

  He moved to the counter and flagged down the woman pouring coffee. She shuffled over and looked at him with watery eyes.

  ‘‘Last night I was in here. And there was a young waitress, about twenty years old or so, with short blond hair.’’

  ‘‘Ginny?’’

  ‘‘Yeah, Ginny. Is she here?’’

  ‘‘Wish she was, buddy. She called in sick.’’

  Jude’s stomach greeted the news uneasily. ‘‘Do you have her address or something? Some way I can reach her?’’

  ‘‘Yes,’’ the woman answered, then stood staring at him.

  ‘‘Can I have it?’’

  ‘‘You think I’m going to give some pretty young thing’s address to any wacko who happens to walk in off the street?’’

  Jude nodded. ‘‘I totally agree. It’s just . . .’’ He leaned closer. ‘‘It’s just, I think she might be in danger.’’

  ‘‘Especially if I tell a freak like you how to find her. Beat it.’’

  ‘‘No, no, really.’’ He stopped. ‘‘Maybe you could come with me. Or someone else who works here. Someone.’’

  The waitress studied his face a moment. ‘‘What makes you think she’s in trouble?’’

  He sighed, shook his head. ‘‘It’s not a story you’d want to hear right now. Could we just go? If she’s fine, no harm done. But if tomorrow rolls around and something’s happened to her, you’ll think about this moment the rest of your life.’’

  She continued to look at him, considering. Finally, without taking her eyes from his face, she shouted to the other waitress. ‘‘Brandy, can you cover for me for about fifteen minutes?’’

  Brandy stopped in mid-step. ‘‘It’s rush hour here, Linda!’’

  ‘‘Then rush a little more. I’ll be right back.’’

  Brandy banged through the doors into the kitchen with a huff. Linda, the gray-haired waitress, dug under the counter and retrieved a purse, then looked back at Jude again. ‘‘I just want you to know,’’ she said as she opened the top of her purse and let him peer inside. Jude saw the glint of a small-caliber revolver and nodded his head. ‘‘Don’t do anything that’s gonna make me open this purse. Understand?’’ Jude nodded again.

  She took off her apron and headed for the door without waiting for Jude.

  He caught up with Linda—who was quick on her feet—about halfway down the block. ‘‘How far?’’ he asked.

  ‘‘Just a couple of blocks,’’ she said. ‘‘I swear, if I find out you’re some kind of stalker or something, I will personally castrate you with a butter knife.�
��’

  ‘‘Understood.’’

  They rounded the corner and cut through an alley, then came to an old house in the middle of the street. ‘‘She’s in the basement apartment,’’ Linda said as she went down the small flight of steps to a green door with the paint flaking off it.

  She knocked. ‘‘Ginny? You in there?’’ They listened for an answer but didn’t hear one. She knocked again, a little louder. Still no answer.

  Jude looked at Linda, arched his eyebrows. ‘‘Should we?’’ he asked.

  She frowned. ‘‘Yeah, I think we should. You’ve got me a little spooked now.’’

  Jude put his shoulder into the door, trying to bust it open. It didn’t move. He backed up as much as he could on the basement stoop and prepared himself for another crack at it.

  ‘‘Hang on,’’ Linda said. ‘‘Did you try the handle?’’

  He reached for the handle. It turned in his hand, and the door creaked open. He looked at Linda and shrugged, then waved her inside first.

  They walked in slowly. ‘‘Ginny?’’ Linda called. ‘‘You here, honey?’’ No answer.

  They came to the living room, where Ginny sat at a card table, staring at the wall. In front of her was a pad of paper and a large bottle of pills.

  Linda rushed over and put her hand to Ginny’s cheek as if to check her temperature. ‘‘You okay, dear? I—we—just wanted to check on you.’’ Ginny didn’t answer; she simply stared at the wall.

  Jude entered the room, and the metallic tang of copper assaulted his tongue. He hesitated as Linda looked at him. ‘‘What is it?’’ she said.

  ‘‘Nothing. Check the bottle of pills.’’ He motioned to the prescription bottle.

  Ginny broke her silence. ‘‘I haven’t taken any. Yet.’’

  Linda looked at Jude, her eyes asking him what they should do. Jude moved across the room and pulled a folding chair up to the table. ‘‘Ginny,’’ he said softly, ‘‘I’m—’’

  ‘‘The guy from last night,’’ she finished, looking at him. ‘‘Peach pie.’’