Infinite

by Brian Freeman

Trauma.

  It scared me to hear that word, and I wondered what it meant. He assumed I knew something about Karly that I obviously didn’t. Something terrible. I realized that the more I said, the more it would become clear that I didn’t actually know her. Not in this world.

  “Well, there’s not much I can do but head back to my hotel,” I said. “Nice talking to you. I’m sorry I missed Karly. Hopefully she’ll check her phone soon.”

  “You know, she doesn’t live far away. She’s the faculty rep in Goodrich.”

  “Goodrich? Is that one of the dorms?”

  “Yes, it’s just a few minutes’ walk up Sheridan. If you go up there, one of the students can probably let her know you’re outside.”

  “I’ll do that. Thanks a lot.”

  I left the building and went back to the street. The wind whipped through the trees, and I shoved my hands in my pockets as I took the sidewalk north. As excited as I was at the idea that Karly was close by, I also found myself confronting an unhappy truth. I was trying to find a stranger. More than that, I was trying to find a stranger who’d gone through something dark in her past. Trauma.

  In my mind, I couldn’t escape the idea that Karly knew me. I’d see her, and she’d be my wife, and she’d be in love with me. But none of that was true. If I simply showed up at her door, a man who’d met her once on an awful blind date years earlier, she’d wonder why I was there and what I wanted.

  What did I want?

  Honestly, I had no idea. I needed to protect her, but I didn’t know how to warn her of the danger from someone who was actually me.

  When I got to the residence hall, I hesitated at the alley. A few lights were on inside the building, and I could see a handful of summer students through the open curtains and hear music through their windows. I debated whether to stay or just leave. What would I say if I found her?

  Then, not far away, a door opened. A woman emerged from inside the dorm, lingered briefly under the lights, and then turned away toward the gardens in back. She was visible for only a moment, and all I could see was a hint of blond hair and the curve of her jaw.

  The woman looked like Karly, but I couldn’t be sure. Maybe I just wanted it to be her.

  Even so, I followed. I took the alley to the back of the building, where the dormitories and fraternities came together in a kind of quad. It was almost impossible to see in the darkness back here. Trees crowded the open lawns and blocked my view. Ivy-covered walls butted up to the cobblestoned sidewalks. I didn’t see Karly—if it really was Karly—but she couldn’t have gone far. I heard the tap of her heels on stone, but the noise bounced between the walls and made it hard to tell where she was.

  I crossed beside a building with Greek letters engraved over its doorway. Bike racks were crowded near the rear door, and I smelled weed through one of the windows. I stopped by the dense, overgrown hedges and listened again, hearing no footsteps this time. Then, on the far side of the lawn, I spotted a flash of her blond hair as she passed under the glow of a lamppost. She disappeared into a narrow corridor between two buildings. I changed direction to go after her, navigating between the trees. The branches dangled low to the ground, scraping my face as I hurried through the damp grass.

  When I was halfway across the lawn, I stopped.

  A stab of horror ran through my body. Ahead of me, a silhouette detached itself from the thick trunk of an elm tree. It was a man. He stood on the fringe of the grass, framed in darkness by the lamppost. I recognized the outline of his body, because I’d seen it in photographs throughout my life. That was how I looked, with my lean, small frame, with my shock of wavy hair. It was me. It was him. He headed after the blond woman with a determined stride, and as he crossed under the light of the lamppost, I saw the dirty leather of his coat. My father’s coat. I also saw a glinting reflection of something metal in his hand.

  A knife.

  He was carrying a knife.

  I tried to run, but the slick mud under my feet slowed me down. When I got to the walkway between the buildings, the corridor was already empty. I sprinted to the far side and found myself in a wooded area where four sidewalks met in a cross, with more ivy-covered walls on every side. My doppelgänger was gone. So was Karly.

  Was it Karly?

  Was I going to lose her again?

  I didn’t know which way to go—left, right, or straight. In front of me, the cobblestones led beneath an archway between two buildings, and I ran that way, finding myself in another dark quad where brick walls loomed around the square. The area was silent, except for the noise of the tree branches rustling together. I saw no one, and I turned around to reverse my steps.

  There she was. Right behind me. Staring right at me.

  She was fit, young, and attractive, with bobbed blond hair, but she wasn’t Karly. They looked similar, but this woman was a stranger. In her hand was a small canister that she pointed at my face.

  “Freeze, shithead. This is pepper spray. One more step, and you’ll be choking on the ground, and I’ll be kicking the crap out of you. Got it?”

  I backed away and held up my hands. “Hey, I’m sorry. I saw someone following you, and I was just trying to help.”

  “Yeah, you were following me. And now you’re done. I’m calling security, so unless you want to explain why you’re on campus stalking women, you better get the hell out of here and not come back.”

  She didn’t take her eyes off me. With the can of pepper spray still poised, she backed to the doorway of the nearest building and disappeared inside. I didn’t want to be around when campus security arrived, so I walked quickly back the way I’d come.

  Even so, when I reached the alley that led toward Sheridan, I stopped.

  No one was in sight, but the shadows offered plenty of hiding places.

  I waited to see if he would show himself, but he didn’t. Regardless, I knew he was here. Our minds were linked, and I could feel him watching me from the blackness. I’d stopped him tonight, but this wasn’t over. We both knew the stakes.

  He was in this world, and he was hunting for Karly.

  I had to get to her first.

  It was after midnight when I finally made it back to the apartment near River Park. I had nowhere else to go. It occurred to me that the Dylan who really belonged here might have come home while I was gone, but I had to take that chance, so I let myself inside. Moonlight stole through the windows, giving me enough light to see. I made my way to the bedroom and saw that Tai was alone in bed. I took off my clothes, feeling a wave of tiredness. I slid under the covers next to her. She faced away from me, her breathing steady. I knew she’d heard me arrive; I knew she was awake. I lay on my side, and the room was quiet.

  “Where were you?” Tai said softly from the other side of the bed.

  “I told you. I needed to see Roscoe.”

  “You left the church hours ago. I called him. Where did you go?”

  “I drove around.”

  Tai turned over, just inches away. We were eye to eye. Her long hair spilled across the pillow. I could see her bare shoulders and breasts where the blanket slipped down.

  “What are you not telling me?” she asked.

  “Nothing.”

  She stayed silent for a while, watching me. “I’m glad you’re safe. Those two days without you were hell. I was worried about you.”

  “I know.”

  “Why don’t we go away this weekend? We could drive to Lake Geneva, find a little B and B.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Oh. Okay. Whatever.”

  I heard her disappointment and regretted the harshness in my voice. She didn’t deserve that. She had no way of knowing she was in bed with another man. “Tai, I’m sorry.”

  She nudged closer and put her lips on mine. “You know, I can’t fix something when I don’t know what’s broken.”

  “I already told you, it’s not you. It’s me. It’s all me.”

  She kept kissing me. My lips. My chin. My eyes. Her taut ni
pples brushed against my chest, and her long hair caressed my skin. Her hand slid between my legs and began to tease an erection from me.

  “Tai, it’s not a good night for that.”

  “I don’t care.”

  Her motions grew more urgent, her fingernails working on me with long, gentle strokes, and I responded to her touch despite myself. Yes, it felt good, but my body and mind were in two different places. I was thinking about the first time Karly had touched me, when I lay on the bed in the dollhouse, still in casts and mostly unable to move. She’d given me a sponge bath, and we made jokes to defuse the awkwardness of the effect it was having on me, which was impossible to miss. When we ran out of jokes, she giggled and said, “Oh, what the hell” and made me come harder than I ever had in my life.

  That’s what I was remembering when Tai took hold of my shoulder. “Make love to me.”

  I should have put her off, but I didn’t. I rolled on top of her, and she spread her legs wide, and I sank inside her. She cried out a little, then moaned. I thrust in and out slowly, feeling the heat of her response, and I tried to be in the moment. I tried to take pleasure in this, but every touch and every sound she made reminded me that our bodies were strangers. Seeing her face below me, not Karly’s, felt wrong, as if I were somehow cheating on both of them at the same time. I kept dreaming of making love to my real wife, but this wasn’t her. I rushed to finish, and the more I tried to climax, the more my body betrayed me. My arousal vanished. Tai wrapped her legs around me and tried to coax me back to life, but we were done. I couldn’t do this.

  I pulled out of her and collapsed onto my back. “I’m sorry.”

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “I have a lot on my mind.”

  “So tell me about it. Talk to me.”

  “I don’t even know where to start.”

  She stared at the ceiling, and the dim light gave away the shine of tears in her eyes. “You’ve always been distant. I never blamed you for that. But I thought we were making progress. I thought you were learning to love me. Now you’re going backward.”

  “I know.”

  “You can’t go on like this,” Tai said. “Something’s wrong with you. If you won’t talk to me, then talk to Roscoe, or talk to a shrink. You need help. Please, sweetheart.”

  She reached out a hand to me, but I pulled mine away. My body was damp with sweat, my heart still racing. I didn’t say anything to Tai, but she was right. I needed help, and I could only think of one person who would understand what I was going through.

  I had to find Eve Brier.

  CHAPTER 19

  I awakened before dawn. Tai was still asleep, or pretending to be asleep so she didn’t have to deal with me. I stood over the bed and watched her silently, feeling guilty about what had transpired between us overnight. My instinct was to wake her up. Tell her everything. But I waited. Somehow I managed to convince myself that I was protecting her with my silence.

  I showered in the darkness. The water brought me right back to when I was trapped in the river. It didn’t matter what world I was in—that helpless sensation never left me. I struggled through the claustrophobia, then went back into the bedroom to get dressed. There wasn’t much in the closet of this other Dylan that appealed to my own tastes. I looked for the blazer I’d seen him wearing when I followed him from the Art Institute, but I didn’t see that coat on any of the hangers. Instead, I chose the least offensive patterned shirt I could find and a pair of Dockers.

  It was too early to head downtown, so first I took a walk on the trails of the park to clear my head. I crossed the open grass, passing the jungle gyms and the community pool, and reached the path that led along the bank of the Chicago River. A strip of weeds and clover ended in dense trees, obscuring the fence that protected the steep slope over the water. The path was closed off by police tape here for at least fifty yards. I knew why. Betsy Kern had been found hidden in the brush near this spot, a knife in her heart. She was the latest victim in a chain of violence that stretched across the Many Worlds.

  I walked north by the river. Ahead of me, the path descended under Foster Avenue, where graffiti marred the stone wall and the steel girders of the bridge. I walked beside the river’s drab green water here. Beyond the bridge, the trail climbed into a new section of parkland. By that time, the horizon was brightening, but in the semidarkness, the trail lights hadn’t switched off.

  I came upon a weeping willow whose dangling branches swished against the sidewalk. As I passed the tree, I disturbed an enormous rat, which scampered practically over my toes into the dense undergrowth near the water. Seeing the rat made me freeze, although rats were a common sight along the river. I was still looking down at my feet when I spotted a fleck of gold reflecting the shine from the light post. It made me curious. I squatted and used my fingers to brush away the mud to see what it was.

  What I found was a brass button. I picked it up and rubbed the metal to clean it, and then I used my phone to light up the button in my hand. The insignia showed a small crown and shield, with the initials HSM underneath. I knew that those initials stood for Hart Schaffner Marx, because that was the brand of navy blazer I’d been wearing yesterday, and my coat had identical buttons on the cuffs.

  The Dylan who lived here, Tai’s husband, owned the same blazer. I didn’t think that was a coincidence.

  I stared at the dark riverbank where the rat had disappeared. The weeds beside the trail grew particularly high here. Between the brush and the trees clustered tightly together, I couldn’t even see the rusted fence on the riverbank. I looked up and down the trail to make sure I was still alone, and then I plunged into the weeds. When I reached the fence, I didn’t even need to climb it. The mesh had been cut away from the post, leaving a gap where I could squeeze to the other side. Only a few feet separated me from the river at the bottom of the slope. A dense web of green branches leaned over the water. I heard the low slurp of the current. Birds chattered loudly, as if warning me away.

  It was still night in here, dark and deep. Using my phone again, I lit up a small patch of the woods around me, watching a cloud of insects flock to the glow. When I turned the light to the ground, I caused a stir, as half a dozen more rats scattered from where they’d been feeding. When I looked at what they’d left behind, my stomach lurched. I held in the urge to vomit. I squeezed my eyes shut and took several deep breaths. Then I steeled myself to see what was below me.

  A body.

  A body with no face. That was partly because of the rats eating away what was left of the corpse and partly because someone had used a shovel or club to bash the man’s face to a pulp. He was completely unrecognizable, but he was wearing a Hart Schaffner Marx navy blazer identical to the one I owned. I checked the cuff and saw a missing button, and below the cuff, the body was missing something else. His hand had been cut off. I checked and found that the other hand was missing, too.

  No fingerprints.

  It was an eerie feeling, staring at myself, dead. Because I knew this was Dylan Moran. Tai’s Dylan Moran, who was never coming home to her. No one was likely to identify him in his current state, and that was assuming his body was found at all before the rats skeletonized him and gnawed away what was left of the bones. He’d simply ooze away into the ground.

  What did I do next? I did nothing.

  I left him there. I definitely wasn’t going to call the police.

  When I was sure no one else was nearby, I slipped through the fence again and headed toward home. His home. No one would be looking for him, no one would wonder if the body was his, because Dylan Moran wasn’t missing. He was right where he was supposed to be. I was here in his place.

  I had a strange, disorienting realization about what this all meant.

  If I wanted it, this man’s life was mine.

  Eve Brier had already warned me. You might be tempted to stay.

  Roscoe had feared the same thing. They were both right.

  I’d come to this world to
stop a killer, but now that I was here, I found myself wondering: What if I really could find Karly?

  Could we be together again?

  Could I have what I’d lost?

  I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want that, but it gave me a sick feeling to think about rebuilding my life over the decomposing body of another Dylan Moran.

  I didn’t know what to do. I needed Eve’s help. I needed to find out more about the Many Worlds and what would happen to me if I stayed.

  She’d given me her business card when we first met. It listed the address of her office in the tapering black tower that Chicagoans would always call the Hancock Center. Her psychiatry practice was lucrative enough to afford her exclusive space along the Magnificent Mile.

  I drove downtown, parked a couple of blocks away, and joined the morning chaos on Michigan Avenue. It felt normal to be here, as if nothing in my world had changed. I could head south to my favorite lunch places, and they would recognize me. I could walk into my office at the LaSalle Plaza and go to work, and no one would find anything strange about it.

  This was Dylan Moran’s Chicago.

  I entered the building through the doors on Chestnut Street along with a sea of commuters. Inside the lobby, I found myself mesmerized by the sculpture that dominated the space. Called Lucent, it was a globe formed by thousands of blue lights designed to emulate the stars of the night sky. With a mirrored ceiling above it and a black pool of water beneath, the endless reflections made me think of the parallel worlds in which I was caught. Somehow, I didn’t think that was an accident. Eve had picked this place for a reason, as if the artwork were the first step in opening a patient’s mind to limitless possibilities.

  I gave the guard at the security desk my name and the number of Eve’s office on the twenty-ninth floor. While he tapped on his keyboard, I thought about what I needed to say to her. As far as I knew, she and I were strangers in this world, but she was also my ally, my coconspirator. She was the one who’d delivered me here, so it made sense that she could help me decide what to do next.