Memory Hole

by Douglas Jern

  “Did you see what just happened, Laura?”

  It was obvious what he meant, and she nodded. She had seen exactly what just happened: Homer had cut himself and then switched pasts with Joey, just the way he had switched pasts with her the day before to make her have killed Jeffrey. And only she and Homer were aware of it.

  “I do not know how you got in touch with Joey,” said Homer, “and by now it does not really matter. He brought you to me, and now he will never speak out of turn again. All’s well that ends well. What does matter is that exceptional gift of yours.”

  He twirled the knife between his fingers as he spoke.

  “Ever since I saw the news last night, I have wondered how you saw through me. Whatever it was Jeffrey had, it would seem you have it too. Tell me, how did you know?”

  The twirling fingers stopped, holding the knife pointed at Laura, like a microphone in the hands of a TV reporter.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” lied Laura. She was still surrounded, and though she could see no guns, Homer had his knife, and that was more than enough. She hadn’t expected the narrow enclosure, and now that she was in it, she was in his power with no means of escape. All she could do was play for time, hoping that Zachary and Leo would make it here soon.

  Homer raised an eyebrow.

  “Now, now, Laura. Lying will not get you anywhere. You know, I think you are much like me in some ways. Would I be correct in assuming that whatever gift it is you have, it first came to you as a child? It did with me, you know, and I have been training ever since, testing the limits of my abilities. Honing it. Did you and your brother do the same?”

  Laura said nothing. Homer still had plenty of patience left; he wanted her to talk, to reveal her secrets to him before he killed her. And he would kill her no matter what, that much was clear. So she kept silent, staring into Homer’s eyes, soaking up as many of his thoughts and memories as she could.

  She found it surprisingly easy to read him, easier than Zachary, and almost as naturally as Jeffrey. It seemed that, though their powers expressed themselves differently, the structures of their minds were similar. She saw Homer’s memories, saw the little boy who had doomed his kid brother in a desperate bid to save himself, saw the young man racked by guilt who had found misguided inspiration in a book he’d completely failed to understand, saw the assassin who had murdered her brother with elated triumph in his heart. She saw a monster. And she ached to kill it.

  A faint gunshot from outside startled her, severing her connection to Homer’s mind. It was followed by two more in rapid succession, and then one more. Then it was quiet. Homer’s smile widened, baring a row of immaculate shark teeth.

  “Sounds like we have company,” he said, reaching for the walkie-talkie. “What is your status?”

  Silence. The grin faded. Laura’s heart fluttered, and she felt the world start to keel over. She tore her gaze away from Homer and looked up at the ceiling, taking deep, regular breaths. This was no time to pass out. Zachary was coming. She could feel it.

  00:00 – Zachary

  Letting Laura go alone had been a mistake. Every fiber of his being screamed at him to get out of the car and catch up with her before she rounded the corner and came within sight of the warehouse. There had to be a better way. Still, Laura had told them to wait outside before coming in, and he was a man of his word. So here they were, waiting in the car.

  Leo was tapping out a fast, irregular beat on the steering wheel. Zachary had told him to stop twice already, but he’d started again after just a few seconds. He couldn’t seem to help it.

  “We should go after her,” said Leo, giving the steering wheel a final, two-handed slap. He nodded to himself. “Yeah, I’m going.”

  He flung the door open and bounced out of the car without even taking the keys out of the ignition.

  “Leo, wait!” Zachary went after him. “She told us to wait, remember?”

  “We’ve waited long enough,” said Leo over his shoulder.

  Zachary caught up to him just before the corner and grabbed him by the shoulder.

  Leo scowled. Zachary could see a manic glint in his eye. He must have a little voice of his own, urging him to go after Laura, to save her.

  Fuck it, he thought. A minute or two won’t make a difference.

  “Let me go!” said Leo. “She could be in danger, Zachary! We have to…”

  “I know,” Zachary cut him off. “And you’re right, we’ve waited just about long enough. You got your gun?”

  “Loaded and ready. You?”

  “Likewise. Listen, whatever happens, we get to Laura and we cover her. No matter what, you understand? Protecting her is all that matters right now. Chances are we’re going to have to shoot people tonight. You have to be ready for that. Okay?”

  “Okay,” said Leo. “I’m ready.”

  “Good. But remember, we just walk past the guards, like Laura said. Nice and easy. Okay?”

  Leo nodded. Zachary smiled and gave him a slap on the back.

  “Then let’s go!”

  They peered around the corner of Sylvester Drive. They were approaching the warehouse from the south. They could see the loading bay through the chain-link fence. Next to it stood two men with guns, one of them smoking a cigarette.

  “They’re armed,” said Leo, as if Zachary hadn’t already noticed. “We can’t just walk up to them. They’ll shoot us.”

  Leo drew his gun.

  “Wait, Leo!” hissed Zachary. “Remember what Laura said. Just act natural, and they’ll let us through.”

  “You can’t be sure of that!” said Leo. The manic look in his eye was back.

  “We have to trust Laura!”

  “I do, but there’s too much at stake here.”

  “That’s exactly why…”

  But Leo wasn’t listening. Leo was walking toward the warehouse entrance in long strides, his gun at the ready.

  “Oh, goddammit,” muttered Zachary and hurried after him. He drew his revolver.

  The smoker had noticed Leo. He spat out his cigarette and said something to his companion, who raised a handgun and yelled “Stop!”

  Zachary and Leo were now side by side.

  “I’ve got the guy on the right, Leo! You take the left one.”

  “Right!”

  That was all the talking there was time for. Zachary raised his gun and took aim. His hand was steady. Time seemed to stop around him, as if the world were watching him, rating his marksmanship. When he pulled the trigger, the revolver’s hammer began its journey toward the chamber with all the speed and urgency of a heavily laden barge leaving port. Nevertheless, once the gun fired, it delivered its deadly payload in an instant. The man on the right fell to the ground next to his cigarette.

  That’s one, thought Zachary.

  The man on the left, a mustachioed brute in a leather jacket, raised his gun and fired a fraction of a second before Leo’s gun went off. Realizing that the firefight wasn’t over yet, Zachary’s brain kicked into high gear again, and his arms swiveled automatically to the left.

  As he took aim again, he registered the plink of a bullet against the metal wall of the warehouse, which told him that Leo’s shot had missed. It was followed by the mustache man’s second shot, which passed by so close to Zachary that he could feel the rush of wind by his right ear. He drew a bead on the man, aiming for center mass, and fired a second time. A hole opened in the door behind the man, black as pitch against the faded paint.

  That’s two, he thought. And if I don’t nail the next one, I’m a goner. Three strikes and you’re out.

  The thought should have scared him shitless, but he felt nothing. He cocked the hammer again, leisurely, as if time once again had taken the day off. His head was cool, his hands steady as the earth. He could have been having a casual practice session at the target range. He aimed, observing without much interest that his target was doing the same, and squeezed the trigger, lovingly, the way he’d sometimes squeezed Ulrike’s nipp
les while standing behind her in the shower, back in the olden days when they were young. When they’d still loved and wanted each other.

  And I bet my therapist would have a field day with that association, he thought as the hammer ran its hundred-mile dash toward the chamber. If I had a therapist, that is.

  The gun fired, and in the slow-motion version of reality he currently seemed to inhabit, he saw—or imagined that he could see—the bullet burst forth from the barrel and fly toward the man.

  That’s three, he thought. One way or another, this ends now.

  The mustache man fell to the ground with a grunt of pain and lay still. A clean kill, as oxymoronic as that sounded. Zachary remained at the ready in case any other guards came running. None did. The night was quiet, save for the ringing in his ears.

  “Looks like that did it,” he said, turning to his left.

  Whatever he’d intended to say next got lost somewhere along the way.

  Leo was lying on the ground, blood trickling from his abdomen.

  “Oh shit,” Zachary managed, after a moment of shock. “Leo, are you all right?”

  It was a stupid fucking question, but it was all he could think to say.

  Leo looked at him, his face contorted with pain.

  “I’m sorry,” he wheezed. “I had him in my sights, but I hesitated. I just couldn’t pull the trigger. Fuck, it hurts!”

  “Keep it together Leo, you’re gonna be fine,” said Zachary as he crouched down next to him. More bullshit, but what else was there to say?

  He realized that anyone in the warehouse, including Homer, would have heard the gunshots.

  Laura is in danger. You must help her, now!

  Leo was bleeding badly. From what Zachary could tell, the bullet had hit him in the gut, and was still in there. No amount of first aid would save him now. Still, it was a nasty way to go, and no one should have to face such a death alone.

  He thought of Officer Allman’s death, and how disgusted he’d been by it. He would not shame Leo’s memory the same way. The kid deserved a friendly face by his side in his last moments. On the other hand, Laura needed him. Zachary had said it himself: protecting her was all that mattered. And he was a man of his word.

  You’ve got to hurry! Time’s running out! Homer’s gonna kill her!

  He took Leo’s hand, and noticed that his own had started shaking. Cursing his cowardice, he forced himself to look at Leo’s face. He was struck by how young he looked. With the downy stubble on his chin and his big, panda-bear eyes, he could’ve passed for a nervous college freshman on his first day at campus. Christ, he really was just a kid, and now he was dying, gut-shot by some lowlife who’d never be judged for his crimes. It wasn’t right. But there was nothing he could do.

  “Zachary,” said Leo with tears in his eyes. “Please help me.”

  “I’m sorry, Leo. Laura needs me.”

  He stood up. From behind him, he could hear a muffled voice coming from a radio or walkie-talkie. He couldn’t make out the words, but he was willing to bet it was Homer checking in on the guards. He had to hurry.

  “I’ll come back for you,” he said to Leo as he started walking toward the warehouse. “Just… hang tight, okay?”

  “Zachary! Zachary, please!”

  Leo held out a hand, bloody fingers splayed in supplication. He looked so small, so childlike and pathetic, that Zachary couldn’t bear to look at him anymore. He turned his back on him, ignoring the sobs and pleas for salvation.

  It’s too late to save him. But you can still save Laura. Hurry.

  Zachary opened the door and stepped inside the warehouse. Leo had gone quiet. He was probably already unconscious from the blood loss. Better that way. Let him go in his sleep, or what passed for it. Let his pain be over.

  “I’m sorry, Leo,” muttered Zachary to himself as he made his way through the dark corridor. “I’ll never forget you. I swear.”

  His hands had stopped shaking.

  00:08 – Laura

  Homer put down the walkie-talkie and sighed. His mind betrayed only a mild annoyance at the interruption, but Laura had snapped up another little detail that would be crucial to her survival. A way out.

  “You,” said Homer, pointing at the man in the rear corner of the enclosure. “Keep an eye on her.”

  He whipped around to the other two men.

  “You two, get on either side of the entrance. We have at least one man on his way here. Jump him when he comes in. But do not move a muscle until then, no matter what happens. Understood?”

  The men nodded and took their positions next to the doorway. The darkness and narrow opening of the corridor would hide the men from Zachary’s sight until he was already in the enclosure, and by then it’d be too late to react.

  The third man grabbed Laura by the arm and pulled her into the rear corner of the enclosure, out of sight from the entrance.

  “Don’t move,” he hissed, and his hot breath in her ear sent shivers of revulsion down her spine.

  She glanced at the other corner of the enclosure and saw the thin seam between the mirrors, invisible if you didn’t know it was there. She had to move fast, before Zachary got here. She didn’t want to be around in case a fight broke out in the narrow confine of the enclosure.

  She heard Zachary’s thoughts before his footsteps. His mind was a powder keg of rage, the fuse already lit with a lust for revenge. Leo wasn’t with him.

  The man beside her still held on to her arm, but she could sense that his attention was elsewhere. He was listening intently to the approaching footsteps and had all but forgotten about Laura. A quick reading of the room confirmed that the same was true for all of them. It was time.

  Laura clenched her free hand into a fist and drove it into the man’s nose as hard as she could. It made a sinewy sound, like the sound of a jaw popping when you yawn. Surprised by the sudden pain, the man let go of her arm, and she dashed for the opposite corner, slipping in Joey’s blood but managing to keep her balance. The two other men just stood and stared at her, either out of an unwavering obedience to Homer’s orders, or out of pure surprise at her sudden rash move. But of course, they didn’t know what she knew, and would never imagine that her seemingly random mad dash was in fact a rational if daring attempt to escape.

  Homer, on the other hand, did know, which was why she must get out of that room of death as soon as she could. Reaching the northwest corner of the enclosure, she planted her feet and prepared to give the mirrored wall in front of her a shove.

  And stared right into Homer’s eyes in the mirror.

  He had noticed the commotion and turned to see what was up. Despite her efforts to leave before he could catch her, the room’s design had worked in his favor, just as he’d planned. She saw him cross his legs, meaning to trip her up—or perhaps that should be “make me have tripped myself up,” she thought—and saw the familiar fireworks begin to emanate from Homer’s mind…

  “Homer!”

  A loud voice came from the corridor, followed by an even louder gunshot. The fireworks died out and she rammed into the narrow section of wall, which caught on the floor, then swung open with a grinding creak. Laura nearly fell headlong through the small doorway, stumbling out of the enclosure on unsteady legs, away from Homer and his henchmen, who now had other things to worry about. Zachary was here.

  00:09 – Zachary

  When he came around the final corner of the corridor, he saw light up ahead. He proceeded with his gun raised and senses sharpened. His pulse pounded in his ears and his hands were slick with sweat, but they remained steady. He’d fired three shots outside. That left him with three bullets for the confrontation ahead. There was no time to reload. He had no idea how many people were in there, but he’d have to make do.

  There was a commotion from beyond the doorway, and he could see a man standing with his back to him, his legs crossed as if he were straining not to piss himself.

  Buddy, I know how you feel, he thought.

&nbs
p; The man was wearing a gray suit and black shoes and he was bald. It was the bald head that convinced him. Taking aim, taking a chance, Zachary yelled:

  “Homer!”

  The man whirled around, and Zachary fired.

  It was an easy shot; the man was standing smack dab in the center of the doorway, framed like a pretty picture. He might as well have a target painted on his chest. There was no way Zachary could have missed him. And yet, he showed no sign of pain, not the slightest indication that he’d been shot. He stood as firm as ever, a smile playing on his lips.

  A second later, a sound like a suitcase full of clothes dropping to the ground came from the left of the doorway, and a man’s arm flopped onto the floor.

  Perplexed, Zachary advanced, taking aim at Homer once again. Maybe he’d missed his last shot, but he was damn well going to hit this time.

  Fool me once, shame on you, he thought. This is for Leo, you son of a bitch.

  He took his finger off the trigger and tossed the gun to the ground.

  Zachary stared at his empty hand, which started to shake before his eyes.

  What the fuck did I just do? he thought, unable to come up with a satisfactory answer. Had he just thrown his gun away? Why the fuck would he do that?

  Homer was still smiling, serene and satisfied, just the way Laura had described him. Something clicked in Zachary’s head.

  He used his power on me, he thought. He made me throw the gun away. But how does he do it? How does it work?

  He was still wrestling with these questions when a freight train slammed into his temple. Black stars went supernova in front of his eyes, and he almost passed out.

  Pull yourself together! Laura needs you!

  His vision cleared, and he could see the man who’d sucker-punched him, a big square-jawed gorilla in a cheap suit of the kind so abundant among the gangsters of the city. The thug had picked up Zachary’s gun and was aiming at him. A third man was standing behind Homer, gingerly touching a broken nose, wincing with pain.