I felt Nickie’s hand, resting so softly on my leg, her fingers barely squeezing me, like she was scared.
I said, “I’m sorry, Seth.”
And I didn’t pull my hands away from my face until I felt Nickie’s arms slip around me. Then she put her face against my neck and cried.
Everything is so loud: my ears, roaring just like Seth’s must have.
I have to touch the lens, but I can’t move my hands yet.
Nickie whispers, “There must be a reason he chose you, Jack.”
Who? Freddie or Seth?
Or Henry?
I try to get a breath, feel strangled.
“He knew who I was. Whitmore. She gave his baby that name.”
I know I need to go back, and Nickie says, “I love you.”
Fifty-Four
“Jack!” Conner saw us before we realized he had already gotten down from the train.
He smiled and threw his arms around me. Then he looked at Nickie, hugged her, and gave her a kiss on her cheek.
He looked good, healthy, like I wished I did.
“Damn,” he said. “You look like you lost twenty pounds. And, dude, what’s up with the ripped jeans?”
Conner never changed. I liked that.
We walked back along the platform together toward the Underground, and that’s when Nickie said what I was hoping she wouldn’t.
“I think I’d better be going home now. I likely am going to find myself in a bit of trouble when my parents realize I didn’t come home last night.”
Conner slapped my butt. “Dude.”
“It’s our last night here, Nickie,” I said. My voice sounded dumb and whiney. “Me and Conner are going to go out. Please come with us.”
“Ooh. Threesome,” Conner said.
“Shut up.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ll phone you later. If I can’t make it, I promise to go to Heathrow with you both tomorrow and see you off.”
I sighed.
And as soon as I kissed her good-bye at the Tube station, Conner patted me on the shoulder and said, “And in case you’re wondering about me and Rachel, the answer is Yes, we did, too.”
I rolled my eyes. “I am so relieved.”
“Not as much as me, dude.”
We went on a run for the last time through Regent’s Park. I tried not to think about the distractions—the lens, Marbury, Nickie, going home—but I couldn’t stay focused. Sweating, we walked back in toward the hotel along Marylebone Road; and Conner just couldn’t seem to wipe the beaming, gloating look from his face.
“You look different,” he said.
“You already said that.” I wiped my hand through my hair. “I’m skinnier.”
“No,” Conner said. “I don’t mean that. Just your face, I think. Dude, see what sex does to you?”
“Whatever.”
“Do you love her?”
“I am totally in love with her, Con.”
“You still pissed at me?”
“Not even close.” I said, “What about you and Rachel?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I am ready to check out of Glenbrook and get back here before it’s even close to the beginning of the term.”
“Me too.”
When Conner was in the shower, I began sweating and shaking again. I sat there on the vinyl-covered desk chair, the bare skin of my legs and back adhering to it, just staring at those ripped jeans that were balled up on my side of the bed.
Don’t do it, Jack.
Just get through one night without pulling that shit on the people you love.
I felt sick, looked at my phone, trying to will it to ring so I could hear Nickie’s voice. Maybe it could anchor me down.
I went to the refrigerator bar and opened two beers. I stuck my arm into the shower and said, “Here. Party time.”
Just trying to do anything to keep myself away from the Marbury lens.
Conner clinked his beer bottle against mine.
“And hurry up and get out. I want to get ready, too,” I said.
I hated times like this; times when I’d just carry my phone around in my sweaty hand, waiting for a call, checking and rechecking the empty screen.
It began buzzing when I was in the shower. It spun a half circle on the marble countertop beside the bathroom sink.
I shut the water off and shook what I could from my arms and legs.
I picked up the phone.
It wasn’t her.
“Henry,” I said.
“I wanted to see if you’d come back,” he said. “You weren’t exactly here when you came to my flat on Tuesday, were you?”
“I don’t remember it.”
Jack doesn’t remember anything.
I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around me, tried to keep my voice down so Conner wouldn’t come. I could hear the television. It sounded like an English version of The Amethyst Hour.
“Is everything good, then?”
“The boys are okay now.”
“And you?”
“As usual. Fucked,” I said. “I’m going back to the States tomorrow.”
Silence.
“I see.”
“Yeah.”
“Jack? Sometime, will you tell me how it ends?”
“Sometime,” I said. “Bye, Henry.”
I closed my phone.
I wondered if maybe Henry still hurt about Marbury. He said he didn’t, but I didn’t really believe that, either. I imagined him, at that moment, holding his guts and shaking somewhere in his dirty flat, all alone, wishing.
And I didn’t care anymore if Conner couldn’t see Henry that night, or if he couldn’t hear him on the phone. Or if he was ever real in the first place, because I knew when I hung up the phone that I was never going to hear from Henry Hewitt again.
I dried off and pulled on a fresh T-shirt and underwear. It actually felt good, like I hadn’t been clean in days, and I tried to just keep my head focused on going out with Conner for our last night in London. But I still carried the phone in my hand, waiting for her, when I walked back into the bedroom.
Conner was sitting, one foot on the floor, one leg stretched out on top of the bed. His shoes were on. He looked, as Conner usually did, like a guy you’d see in some trendy clothes company print ad, like he was forever on his way out to some club or party or something. He was talking on his phone, and just when I came in I heard him say, “I love you,” and he closed the phone, looked at the screen, then slid it into his pocket.
I cleared my throat. “Pretty serious, Con.”
“Dude.” And I could tell he was going to say something sarcastic: “That was a surprise voice mail message I was leaving for you.”
Crazy Jack would probably think it was from Henry.
“Okay. Sure.”
Conner’s smile faded. “Is something wrong?”
“Nah. It’s okay.”
I began digging through my pack, looking for something to wear.
“All my shit’s thrashed,” I said.
“Well, if you didn’t live like a drug addict, it wouldn’t happen.”
Then I remembered Nickie had actually left a bag of laundered clothes that she’d taken from me on Monday. It was still sitting by the door. When I opened it, it was almost like going back in time. And everything I’d worn that day was in there, perfectly folded, and clean. Even my socks. I took them out, sat on the bed, and pulled them onto my feet.
Then I saw that she’d left a small square of paper inside. On it, she’d written I love you. I took the note out and stared at it for a while.
Conner leaned over my shoulder and said, “Is that for me?”
“She washed some clothes for me,” I said.
I pulled out the jeans that were in the bag. They looked like she’d pressed them or something, like they were brand-new. They smelled like Nickie’s house.
“That,” Conner said, “is called folding. Some people do it to their clothes so they don’t look like fucking newspapers
you’d find at the bottom of a trash can. Observe, numbnuts.”
Then he grabbed Ander’s balled-up jeans from the bed and shook them out to give me a lesson.
That’s when the Marbury lens dropped out of the pocket.
I don’t know if Conner said, “Holy shit!” before I said, “Goddamnit!” or if we both blurted out our curses simultaneously. But it was like a floodlight being shot out into every angled corner of the room; so overpowering that I could instantly smell and hear everything in Marbury. I looked down at the lens as it sat there, blasting a hole through the rumpled sheets, opening up on some other forever.
Conner saw it, too, said, “How the fuck did this get here?”
I looked at him. His eyes were stuck on the lens.
“I can see you there, Jack.”
I looked down, saw a black bug the size of my forearm crawling on the bed.
Then, I don’t know.
Fifty-Five
That sound.
Chewing.
My stomach, twisting, as I looked down at Conner, wondering what he was seeing, what this felt like to him.
“Here,” Ben said. He handed a water bottle to Griffin, and the boy poured it out over his head, bathing the blood away from his face and chest.
“And put these on.” Ben held Griffin’s fatigues and gun belt in the other hand.
I’d been kneeling beside Conner. His breaths were faint, gurgling rasps.
The harvester I’d seen was chewing its way inside Freddie’s skull through the exit wound from my bullet. Another had already slipped inside a fresh, perfect circle just below his sternum. There were maybe a dozen more on the ground, working their way beneath his body.
Chewing.
But none on Conner yet.
I leaned over him, looked right into his eyes.
“Hey. Jack,” he whispered. “It hurts pretty bad.”
“What the fuck, Jack? What the fuck?” Ben said.
He took one step toward me. I put my palm up, warning him back.
“No, Ben. I’ll tell you about it some time.”
“Put him down, Jack,” Griffin said. “Just shoot him in the fucking head.”
I turned and looked at Griffin. “I can’t.”
Conner moved his hand, tried to touch me.
I grabbed on and held it.
Jack doesn’t cry.
Seth had been watching us, back at the edge of the trees where I had taken the shot at Freddie.
“Come on, Jack,” Ben said. “Either do it, or let’s get out of here. We left a lot of shit back there at the river, and I vote we go get it now.”
He raised his hand.
Griffin’s came up, too. “So do I.”
I got up onto my feet. “Well then go ahead and leave me.”
“We can’t do that, Jack. You agreed to always do what we vote on. We all did. You agreed,” Ben said. “Fuck you if you’re going to break that now.”
Fuck you, Jack.
I looked back at Seth. He was so pale and dim.
“Seth,” I said. “Can you help me? One more time? You know what I’m asking. Can you do it?”
Seth vanished, then immediately reappeared between me and the boys.
Two of the harvesters abandoned Freddie Horvath and scuttled across the ground toward Seth. They were after the ghost. He disappeared again, then faintly stood above Conner’s head.
Then Seth spoke. It was the only time I’d ever heard his voice clearly, not in a whisper. I mean, I could hear him in his story, but this was actually audible. Real. The clear and confident-sounding voice of a boy.
“I believe I might not see you again, Jack.” He faded, moved beside me. I could feel him. The harvesters came across the ground toward us. “You love that girl, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I reckon you do.” I could see his mouth twist into a grin. “I understand about this one, Jack. You love him, too, I suspect.”
I looked at Conner.
“You know who I am, don’t you, Seth?” I said.
“Ever since you were born. Well. I just might not see you again, Jack. So, thank you for carrying my story.”
Then I saw that small gray fog, and Seth vanished inside of Conner Kirk.
The harvesters stopped, moved along the ground back toward Freddie, their jointed legs clicking like plastic.
Conner convulsed, doubled forward like he’d been stung. He curled up onto his side, panting, his eyes closed tightly, arms locked across his midsection where Freddie had stabbed him. He stayed there crumpled in pain, breathing fast, like an injured animal.
“Jack.” Ben was impatient.
Griffin pulled on his pants, his guns hanging low, arms folded across his bare chest.
I grabbed Conner’s knee and rolled him over, onto his back. He groaned, eyes still shut tight. I put my hand around his wrist and pulled his arm away from his gut.
“Let me see,” I said.
The bleeding stopped. The gore wounds had closed up to narrow slits, like they’d been glued shut; and that small fish-shaped mark above Conner’s groin had gone dark, faded to nothing more than a pale scar, like some souvenir of a burn, or a birthmark.
His body shook everywhere.
“Con?”
Ben stepped forward. He held a gun in his hand. It was pointed down, and he swung it right up in line with Conner’s face.
I jumped. I tackled Ben around the waist, driving my shoulder into his belly. He grunted, and I felt the wind being knocked out of him as he fell back. The gun swung up into the air and fired as his finger clenched around the trigger. It rang so loud in my ears that for a moment I wondered if I’d been shot.
We hit the ground. I snaked my hand up along Ben’s wrist and pinned his hand against the ground. He was gasping for air, but his lungs didn’t work. I sat on his chest and brought my right hand up into a fist.
Before I could punch him, Griffin launched himself into me, catching my swing on the back of his shoulder and rolling me away from Ben.
He sprang onto his feet like a monkey, ready to jump at me again.
“Cut it the fuck out!” Griffin snapped.
Ben sat up. He’d dropped his gun in the fight, and reached to grab it again.
I stood between the boys and Conner. I swung my rifle behind my back.
“Go ahead, Ben,” I said. I put my arms out. “Go ahead and shoot me, too. I don’t fucking care anymore.”
Ben’s hand shook.
Griffin screamed, “Stop it!”
Cautiously, Ben put his gun away and stood up. He brushed himself off. He never took his eyes from me.
When I turned around, Conner was sitting up, taking deep breaths, his head was lowered between his bent knees, arms folded across his ankles.
He looked up at me. I saw his eyes. It was him, the black and white eyes were gone, and I could clearly see that it was really Conner Kirk who was sitting on the ground, right there in front of us.
“What the fuck is going on, Jack?” he said.
I looked back at Ben and Griffin. Their mouths just kind of hung open like they couldn’t understand what had happened.
“He’s just a kid,” Griffin said. “Just like us.”
“You okay, Con?”
Conner looked down, jolted, shocked when he saw the scalp and dried human fingers that were strung around his hips.
“Fuck!” he said. He tore at the cord around his waist and tossed it away into the dirt. The bugs were immediately on it, chewing. Then he pulled at the necklace, scattering teeth everywhere. He brushed his hands all over his body, like he’d been covered with ants, or was putting out some kind of fire; and when he saw Freddie lying right beside him, Conner crab-crawled back toward the edge of the clearing and sat there, panting, with his knees hugged up to his naked chest.
“What the fuck is this shit?” Conner looked at each of our faces, eyes wide.
He didn’t remember.
“It’s okay, Con. It’s going to be okay,” I
said.
I stepped over toward him, but Conner scooted back, like he was afraid of me or something.
I put my hand out to him. “Come on. You’re okay now.”
He stopped backing up and sat there, shaking, out of breath, while I kneeled beside him.
Then I saw the fog, like the mist your breath makes on a cold morning, swirling around Conner, taking form once again: the faintest, gray outline of Seth. And they all saw it, too.
There were harvesters everywhere on the ground now, moving, column after column, into the clearing, picking and chewing away at Freddie Horvath, at the scant coverings Conner had torn away from his own body, the sound of their mechanical clicking, buzzing of wings, chewing, growing louder all the time.
And they were on Seth, too, at the outlines of his shoeless feet; it was as though they were actually holding him down to that spot.
Then the noise started. It was low at first, distant-sounding, but then it grew into a painfully loud, jangling din that sounded like metal being torn apart. I heard screams of pain; and the black bugs held on to Seth; and I could tell the terrible wailing was coming from inside him.
Seth began to pulse and flash, the same way he did when I’d seen the subway through him. All of us could see those same images through him: a spastic kind of movie reel of poorly focused and faded film clips. I saw Seth, a tiny boy, shivering, sitting in the freezing water in a steel trough while Davey and Hannah laughed at him; then I saw Glenbrook, and Freddie Horvath driving his Mercedes by the Steckel Park basketball courts at night; Conner and me fighting in the cold water at Blackpool; I saw us in our hotel room, Conner dressed to go out for the evening, me standing there in my underwear, holding a bottle of beer and staring at the gaping doorway that blasted through the middle of the bed; the dead people inside the train; two bodies hanging beside one another from the branch of a redwood tree; the little wooden horse—Roll. Tap. Tap. Tap. And I could see other places, too—places I’d never seen before—a city built entirely upon stone bridges; a dense jungle with flocks of birds so thick it was like standing inside a tornado while they swirled around and around, and I could feel the beating of their wings in the millions; huge mountains covered with ice and snow; endless, storm-tossed black seas. Endless.