Infinite

by Brian Freeman

  My fingers were ready. I heaved my left side upward. The lamp swayed, then fell like a tree, thudding onto the mattress next to me. Immediately, the weight of the stone base began dragging it to the floor. All I could do was cling to the shade with my fingertips. If I let go, it was gone. I held my breath, then snapped my fingers shut like a mousetrap. The lamp jumped closer to me and immediately began to slide back down, but my hand wrapped around the slim glass column and held it firmly.

  With a quick twist of my wrist, I smashed the lamp backward against the brass headboard behind me. The glass broke and left jagged edges. It was fragile glass, but sharp, and I used it to saw at the fabric that secured me to the corner of the headboard. The process was frustratingly slow, but the silk began to come apart in threads, and when I’d opened up a small tear, I yanked hard and heard the tie rip apart and felt my right arm come free.

  I swung my body over and repeated the process to free my left arm. When the silk tore away on that side, I pushed my body up and cut through the knots that held my ankles. I bloodied myself in the process as I rushed to get free, but when the last knot separated, I leaped off the bed.

  Karly.

  We’d agreed to meet at nine o’clock on the Northwestern campus. Outside the window, darkness had fallen in the time it had taken me to get free. When I checked the clock, I saw that it was nine thirty. He was already with her.

  Using my phone, I found the contact number for the Norris center and waited through what felt like two dozen rings before someone answered. It was Saturday night. I was sure the place was busy. I asked to be transferred to security, and this time a gruff voice answered immediately.

  What to say?

  “One of your faculty members, Karly Chance, is meeting someone in the coffee bar on the second floor. You need to get up there and get her away from him. He’s dangerous.”

  “Dangerous? How do you know?”

  “Please, just go talk to her and tell her she isn’t safe. Karly Chance. Do you know who she is?”

  “No, I don’t. You need to tell me what’s going on, sir.”

  “Karly Chance. She’s on the English faculty. Blond hair, ragged cut down to her shoulders, fair skin, blue eyes, about thirty. She’s with a man named Dylan Moran. Messy black hair, lean, not very tall. He’s wearing a checked purple shirt and gray vest. You need to hurry.”

  “I’m heading up there right now, sir, but you need to tell me what this is all about.”

  I needed a story he’d believe. I needed something. Anything.

  “Look, Dylan’s my roommate. He’s obsessed with this woman. He read her book, and now he won’t stop talking about her. He was on campus the other night stalking a girl near Goodrich who looked just like her. He’s unstable, takes a lot of meds. When he left the apartment tonight, he took a knife. Search him. You’ll find it.”

  “A knife? Are you sure?”

  “I’m absolutely certain.”

  “Okay, hang on.”

  The sound on the phone grew muffled. I could hear the background noise of a large crowd of people, and then I heard the man’s voice again, talking to someone else. I couldn’t make out what they were saying. The length of time felt excruciating, and I squeezed the phone impatiently.

  Finally, he came back on the line.

  “Karly Chance? English professor?”

  “Yes, that’s her.”

  “She hasn’t been in here tonight.”

  “She must be. We were supposed—I mean, Dylan told me that he was meeting her there at nine o’clock.”

  “Well, she didn’t show. The coffee guy knows her. He hasn’t seen her. He’s been here all evening.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to think. “Okay. Okay. Can you put out a security alert to the rest of the campus? Have them look for her. She lives in Goodrich. Somebody needs to check her apartment.”

  “First you better tell me your name, sir.”

  I hesitated. You really can’t hesitate when somebody asks you your name.

  “What’s this all about?” the guard went on, a new shadow of suspicion in his voice. “Who are you? How do you know Ms. Chance?”

  “Just look for her! Please!”

  I hung up the phone. I paced in the bedroom, overrun by panic. Where were they? Maybe Karly had skipped the date, but my ego told me that wasn’t true. She wouldn’t have stood me up, not after the conversation we’d had today. But if it wasn’t Karly, then it was him. He’d changed the place where we were supposed to meet. He’d assumed I would get free and alert the campus police, so he’d reached out to her to pick a new location away from the university.

  Where did they go?

  They were out among millions of people on a Chicago Saturday night. They could be anywhere.

  I tried the office number I’d found on Karly’s faculty profile. It went straight to a generic voice mail message. I tapped out a short e-mail to her university account: You’re in danger. Get away from Dylan now. But I had no idea whether it would reach her.

  Where?

  Where would they meet?

  Then I remembered a fragment of our conversation. We’d talked about wishing for a do-over in life for our worst mistakes, a chance to go back and change whatever we’d done wrong.

  Wasn’t that what tonight was for Dylan and Karly?

  A do-over for a disastrous blind date?

  If Dylan asked the Karly of this world where she wanted to go, I was willing to bet she’d go back to the beginning. She’d suggest we try our first date over again and see if we could get it right this time.

  “We went to a club, didn’t we? I don’t even remember which one.”

  “The Spybar.”

  The entrance to the basement dance club called the Spybar was down an alley off Franklin in the artsy River North neighborhood. By the time I got there, a line of twenty-something club hoppers stretched around the corner from the black-draped entrance. I stood under the rusted steel beams of the L tracks, and one of the trains thundered like a roller coaster over my head.

  From across the street, I studied the people in line. Dylan and Karly weren’t there. That meant they were already inside. Or it meant I was completely wrong and they weren’t here at all. I needed to get into the club and find out. I had no time to wait, so I found two Hispanic girls in skintight outfits near the front of the line. I gave them each fifty dollars and paid their covers, and five minutes later, I was down the stairs and inside the club.

  The synthesizer beat of techno music wailed like a siren. I felt it deep in my chest, making it hard to breathe. The house was packed, bodies crammed shoulder to shoulder, arms and hips writhing as people danced. I moved slowly through clouds of fog. Strobe lights blinked, twisting around the floor in cones of white, red, yellow, and green.

  A girl in a black bra, see-through top, and pink skirt blocked my way and grabbed my face. She had dreamy dark eyes that were high on something. “Buy me a drink?” she shouted.

  “Sorry.”

  “Hey, come on. One martini.”

  “I can’t.”

  I tried to squeeze around her, but she pressed her body hard against me and stuck out her tongue between her teeth. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

  I made up an excuse. “I’m with someone.”

  “Yeah, so? She can join the party, too. I saw her. She’s hot.”

  It took a second for my distracted mind to catch up to what she’d said. Then I took hold of her shoulders with both hands. “You saw me tonight? You saw a woman with me?”

  “Sure. Blond, classy.”

  “Where?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Where did you see her? Where in the club? Show me!”

  She wriggled in my grasp. “Let go of me, you freak!”

  “Tell me! Where did you see the woman I was with?”

  “Get off!”

  She twisted away from me and shoved a middle finger in my face. With an irritated toss of her hair, she swayed on hig
h heels toward the bar. I saw others watching me curiously. Two men who were probably bouncers started my way. I melted into the crowd, losing myself among the seething bodies. I couldn’t afford to be tossed out, not when I knew Karly was here.

  The relentless pulse of the music thudded in my brain. The swirling lights dizzied me. I pushed through the club, bouncing off people like a bumper car. No one knew what was happening; no one understood my panic. They laughed. They screamed. Drunk girls did shots and kissed each other on the lips. All I could see around me was a kaleidoscope of skin and sweat, in which faces appeared and disappeared in a fraction of a second.

  Blink on. A face. Blink off. The face was gone.

  Hundreds of them pressed in around me, constantly moving, constantly changing places. I tried to isolate them in my head one at a time. Men. Women. All strangers.

  Then I saw him.

  Blink, blink, blink, went the multicolored lights.

  His face flashed on and off under the strobe, but it was him. My double, my alter ego, my doppelgänger. He balanced a drink in one hand and danced with a slow, sinuous energy, as if riding some kind of adrenaline high. His head undulated like a snake while the beat taunted me: find her, find her, find her. But Karly wasn’t with him. I looked among the nearby faces and didn’t see her. I tried to shove my way toward him, so I could wrap my hands around his throat, but the dancers made an unbreakable chain. I was trapped where I was. The beat grew louder, like a boxer punching me in the chest.

  Find her!

  His head stopped moving. He felt my presence in his brain. His body ground to a halt, and his smoky gaze landed on me. There we were, the two of us, staring at each other across the frenzy of the dance floor. I shouted at him, but the music drowned out my voice. He raised his drink to me, a toast. His grim lips bent into a grin, and I knew in my heart what that awful smile meant.

  I was too late.

  I shouted again. No one paid any attention. No one heard me.

  The lights went off and on. In that split second, Dylan disappeared. He vanished from where he was, and I didn’t see him again. But Karly was still here somewhere. Dying. I knew it. I fought my way through the crowd. When I got to the building’s brick wall, I headed for the back of the club, where people hid from the tumult and noise. I pushed past couples making love in the dark. I slipped on spilled drinks and God knows what else. As the strobes flashed—blink, blink, blink—I spotted someone on the floor. A woman. She sat in the corner with her knees against her chest and her arms wrapped around them.

  “Karly!”

  I scrambled to her and got down on my knees beside her. Blond hair covered her face. When I pushed it aside, her stare was empty, seeing nothing. Her head turned, but when she looked at me, I don’t think she saw me. I watched her lips move; she said something, but in the chaos of the club, I couldn’t hear what it was. I put my arms around her. As I did, my hand sank into a river of blood. When I pulled away, my fingers were covered in crimson red that blinked on and off in the lights.

  “Help! We need help! Over here!”

  No one heard me.

  I put my lips to her ear and whispered. “Karly, hang on. Please hang on. Stay with me.”

  Her head sank against my shoulder, the way it had a million times before. At the movie theater, in the car, in front of the fireplace, on the pillows in bed. It felt so warm, so good, so familiar, as if it should last forever. But she was leaving me again. She was getting farther away, dragged from me by a river of blood that pulsed between my fingers. I put my palm to her chest, feeling her ragged, rattling breath go in and out.

  “Karly, I love you.”

  In.

  Out.

  “You’re my wife. I love you.”

  In.

  Out.

  “I should have saved you. I failed you. I’m sorry, God I’m so sorry.”

  In.

  Out.

  And then nothing.

  “Karly.”

  Nothing. She was gone. I’d found her again and lost her again.

  “Karly.”

  All I could do was say her name and hold her limp body.

  Inches away, people danced. The electronica pounded into my heart, louder and louder. We were invisible on the floor. For the longest time, the partiers in the club were oblivious to us, the beautiful woman dead in the corner, and the man who’d let her die twice.

  CHAPTER 26

  Finally, someone saw me. Saw her. Saw the blood. A piercing scream cut through the noise, and several more followed like a chain reaction, triggering bedlam. The music shut down, and a moment of shocking silence gave way to panic. People called for help and ran to get away. Half the crowd pulled out their phones, some dialing 911, some filming me as I laid Karly gently on her back. I couldn’t stay, not with the police on their way. I got up and headed for the club stairs. I needed to get out of here.

  The people parted for me like some kind of sordid celebrity. Look, there goes OJ. One man tried to be a hero by stopping me, but I planted my foot and delivered a hook across his jaw that sent him reeling. Don’t get into a bar fight with Dylan Moran; he’s been there before. Other men closed in on me, but as they did, I bolted for the steps and escaped into the cool night. Not far away, police sirens blared, heading for the club from multiple directions.

  I ran. So did other club hoppers dispersing from the alley. I sprinted below the L tracks, which loomed over my head like a metal centipede. For four blocks, I ran full out, and then I stopped, slumping against a wall to catch my breath. My head snapped up as I spotted the lights of a squad car speeding toward me, and I quickly spun around the corner into an empty alley. When the police car passed, I went back to the street. I knew I needed to get out of the neighborhood before the cops cordoned off the area, and my car was parked several blocks away. But I found it hard to move. I squatted down, my elbows on my knees, my face in my hands as I endured a new wave of grief.

  When I finally looked up, I saw him.

  Diagonally across the street, near the stairs that led to the Brown Line L station, Dylan Moran stared back at me. He was in his leather jacket, a cigarette dripping from his mouth. He leaned against one of the yellow concrete impact poles off the curb. His grin was gone; he was emotionless again. Her blood was on him, the way it was on me. Seeing him, I felt a rage like nothing in my life. I erupted from where I was and charged toward him. He watched me come, not even moving at first. Then he flicked his cigarette to the street and walked unhurriedly up the stairs to the train station.

  It took me no time to cross the street. Like an animal, I bolted up the stairs after him, but when I got to the top, the station was already empty. No one was there. I used my fare card to spin through the turnstile, and when I got to the platform, I ran along the tracks in both directions. There were no hiding places, no way for him to escape.

  Even so, Dylan was gone. I could almost hear the echo in my head.

  Infinite.

  He was done with this world, and he’d left me behind to take the fall. It was another perfect crime.

  After I made it back to my car, I drove aimlessly through the downtown streets until I was nowhere near the club. Then I pulled to the curb. There was only one thing I could think to do. I called Roscoe. In every world, when I needed him, he was there to rescue me.

  We agreed to meet near the sandy shoreline of North Avenue Beach. It didn’t take me long to get there, and I sat in the car with dried tears on my face and my clothes soaked in blood. The midnight beach in front of me was empty. A stiff cold breeze blew into the car and sent spray over the windshield. I lowered the window, listening to the rhythmic roar of the surf, which went in and out like my wife’s last breaths.

  This was my catastrophic reward for trying to be a hero.

  The Dylan who owned this life was dead. So was Tai. So was a woman named Betsy Kern.

  So was Karly.

  I’d destroyed all of them, and the man I’d chased here had already moved on to kill again
.

  As I sat there, the waves lulled me with a kind of hypnosis. I wasn’t even aware of time passing, but when I looked up, I saw the glow of headlights in my mirror. A car parked beside me, and Roscoe got out. He wore a light-blue windbreaker and casual clothes rather than his priest’s collar. Standing next to the car, he shivered a little and watched the lake, with his hands in the pockets of his jacket. He was probably thinking about all the times we’d biked here as kids and hung out on summer afternoons by the water.

  Roscoe climbed into the passenger seat next to me. With a single glance, he took note of my condition.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “No.”

  “So I take it that isn’t your blood.”

  “It’s Karly’s.”

  He adjusted his black glasses and spoke softly. “I’m sorry, Dylan.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I brought the fresh clothes you wanted,” he added.

  I just nodded.

  “I heard on the radio about a murder at the Spybar. They said a suspect was on the loose. Was that you?”

  “Yes, it was me, but it wasn’t me. Not that it matters. The killer had my face, so what will anyone believe? But I didn’t do this, Roscoe. I know it’s hard for you to accept anything I’ve told you, but I hope you’ll have faith in me. I did not do this.”

  This would have been the time for Roscoe to point out that he’d warned me about the dangers of being in this world, but he was gracious. His deep voice soothed me, the way it always did. “You’re my best friend, Dylan. I’ve said you could always call me for help, and I mean that. As for having faith in you, that goes without saying.”

  “That means a lot.”

  “So what happens now? What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. He won. I lost. Now he’s gone, and here I am.” I pushed open the car door, because I needed to breathe in the fresh air. “Do you want to take a walk on the beach? Like in the old days? We may never have another opportunity to do that together.”

  “If you like.”

  We crossed to the sand and then to the rolling edge of the surf. It was a clear night under moon and stars, and the waves made white ribbons as they broke toward shore. We wandered north, not talking. Around us, I could see a few beach dwellers huddled under blankets, hoping to avoid the park security. When I looked over my shoulder, I saw the city skyline awash in light. Where we’d walked, the lake was already wiping our footsteps clean.