What the Hell Did I Just Read

  Everybody likes to get preachy about drugs, John thought, because it’s a handy way to deflect from their own even worse vices. Dave drank every night and rarely ate a meal that didn’t leave a grease stain behind. Amy ran on sugar, caffeine, and pain pills, and would sacrifice an entire night of sleep to level up a character in one of her games. The people with health insurance get antidepressants and Adderall, the rich get cocaine, the clean-living Christians settle for mug after mug of coffee and all-you-can-eat buffets. The reality is that society had gotten too fast, noisy, and stressful for the human brain to process and everybody was ingesting something to either keep up or dull the shame of falling behind. For those few who truly live clean, well, it’s the self-righteousness that gets them high.

  John headed for Mine’s Eye, a spot so scenic that couples actually hold their weddings there. Well, the ones who don’t know the backstory, anyway. The little church and several rental cabins sat up on a hill that encircled a small weirdly colored pond. At the base of the hill opposite the church was the entrance to what had been a coal mine back in the 1800s, before it collapsed in a horrific disaster. Nobody ever attempted to reopen it because, you guessed it, the circumstances of the disaster were creepy as shit. The miners had collapsed the shaft in on themselves with dynamite, supposedly in order to stop what was in there from getting out. They had sent out one guy—the youngest—to tell everyone else not to attempt a rescue. The town dealt with it in the usual way, which was to simply put up a sign warning people away and otherwise never think about it again.

  The whole area in front of the mine had filled with water over the decades, the mouth now appearing to be frozen in the act of puking loose rocks into the new pond. The minerals in the rock would turn the water emerald green, teal, or cobalt, depending on the color of the sky. So, on a clear day, there’d be this vivid shimmering pool that stood out sharply from the landscape around it, like a magical eye had opened. The church up on the hillside had been built after the collapse, as if someone had planted it there as a safeguard.

  John followed a narrow road around the hilltops, passing the cabins and arriving at the church, which had a sign out front with whimsical slogans they swapped out every week (today’s: CHOOSE YOUR AFTERLIFE: SMOKING OR NON-SMOKING). John thought the building itself did in fact look like someone had taken a “church” symbol on a map and blown it up to life size—tiny building, white painted wood, ornate doors on the front with a cross and steeple overhead. Two stained-glass windows on either side of the door. It also looked just like Maggie’s drawing, though if you grabbed a hundred children and made them draw you a church, they’d all look like that. Again: shitty artists.

  John reached the parking lot and found that Dave hadn’t arrived yet, so he pulled up to wait for him, keeping an eye out for any horror that might be occurring. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. He realized he was clenching his jaw, and forced himself to stop. He grabbed the coins out of the center console. He polished them with his shirt, one by one, then placed them on the seat next to him in order of value and then date minted. He found he was clenching his jaw again—

  There was a scream.

  He was sure he had heard it. A little girl.

  John jumped out of the Jeep. He reached into the back seat and pulled out the T-shirt cannon. He ran up to the front doors, found them locked, then asked the Lord for forgiveness a split second before he kicked his way through.

  Thunder clapped as John stepped through the entryway, shirt cannon at the ready. A half-dozen doves flew past him out the door.

  Standing at the pulpit was a thin, shirtless man holding a cigarette.

  Ted had described Nymph as a creepy sexual deviant type, but John didn’t get that vibe from the guy at all. He had slicked-back hair and narrow, dismissive eyes—he struck John as a cutthroat stockbroker type, a guy who would sever a friendship over a lost game of racquetball. A small man, but wiry. Tight, compact muscles.

  The wind picked up and the walls creaked under the strain. The rain went horizontal, spraying into the open door behind John. He slammed the door closed behind him with a backward kick.

  John said, “Mister Nymph, I presume?”

  The guy took a drag off his cigarette and said, “Congratulations on following a series of groaningly obvious clues. When you enter a room, do you see little equations flying around in front of your eyes?”

  John brandished the gun. “WHERE IS SHE?!?”

  “You tell me, John.”

  “You’ve heard of us.”

  “I have.”

  “Is that why you took the girl? To lure us in? Well, you’ve got us. Let her go. There’s no reason to involve anyone else.”

  “Yes, we wouldn’t want to traumatize poor Ted any further, would we? Do you know why soldiers march in unison? Or why they are compelled to chant in groups? It’s a form of hypnosis, it overrides the brain’s critical thinking centers. It’s the same reason we make schoolchildren shout the Pledge of Allegiance every morning. But, so difficult to adjust after the programming wears off. Tragic, really. And no, John, it turns out that in fact there exist things in this universe that are not about you.”

  Lightning flashed and brought a clap of thunder a half-second later. Close. The wind picked up again. Outside, a branch was wrenched off of a tree.

  “What is it you want, then?”

  “The same as all of us want. To feed and to breed. Do you wish to guess which I intend for little Margaret Knoll? Perhaps both.”

  “She’s still alive.”

  Nymph took a drag off his cigarette. “Tell me, John. Do you believe in the existence of the human soul?”

  “Oh, Jesus, I do not have time for this shit.” Another blast of wind outside. Something heavy smacked into the wall. The ground shook with what John was certain was the impact of an entire tree collapsing nearby. The storm, bursting free of its restraints. “I don’t think you have a soul, how about that?”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere! Why don’t you think I have a soul?”

  “Because you’re a sick fuck who kills little girls.”

  “That tree that just fell—did it have a soul?”

  “You’re stalling. I’m not playing your game.”

  Nymph didn’t answer, just stared and waited for John’s reply. His silence, of course, made the statement for him: You don’t have any choice but to play.

  John growled, “No, a tree doesn’t have a soul that I know of, but I also don’t give a shit.”

  “Of course it doesn’t. It’s just a series of chemical reactions. Sun, water, air. It cannot refuse sunlight on moral grounds, or share water with a more deserving tree. It’s just a machine that soaks up whatever sustenance it encounters.”

  The wind had become a steady howl, a sustained assault that whistled around the corners of the structure. There was a noise like something tearing loose from the roof.

  “I get it,” said John, now having to raise his voice to be heard over the maelstrom. “Trees are stupid. Where is the girl? Maggie, can you hear me?”

  “Does a maggot have a soul?”

  “Is this conversation going the way you planned it in your head? Do you sound clever, like an evil mastermind? Because if this was a video game cut scene I’d be skipping past all this shit.”

  “Of course, a maggot is no more ensouled than a tree; put it on a piece of rotting flesh, and it will eat. The concept of not eating what is in front of it is utterly alien. So what about you? Do you have a soul?”

  “Dave is going to be here any second. If I were you, I’d start cooperating before he walks through that door. See, I don’t think he cares about getting answers. I think he just wants to see you bleed. I think he gets off on it.”

  Undeterred, Nymph said, “Did you know that you can do a simple test to detect if a child has a soul? They did the experiment in the 1960s—you simply set an Oreo cookie on the table in front of them, tell them not to eat it, then leave the room. Some will resist until you ret
urn, the rest will reach out and eat it within minutes, or seconds. Follow up with that latter group decades later and you’ll find they’re all drug addicts, or in jail, or bankrupt. Because they are maggots, you see. Tell me, John, would you have passed this test?”

  John could barely hear the man—the storm was now an enormous animal frantically gnawing away at the wooden shell of the church to get to the soft meat inside. John edged toward Nymph. He would only get one shot at this—meaning his weapon literally only had one shot.

  Nymph said, “We know the answer to that, don’t we? You undergo that test every single day. But I’ve wasted enough of your time. Why don’t we go somewhere and talk this over like reasonable men? We’re both reasonable men, aren’t we?”

  Nymph stepped out from behind the podium. He was wearing nothing except for a tiny pair of little girls’ panties, which did nothing to conceal his massive erection.

  The wind made the exact sound you hear when a freight train runs over your face.

  John ran at Nymph.

  With a hellish noise, the roof was ripped from the building.

  Me

  I wrestled with the decision for a few blocks but eventually decided to swing around and head for the apartment to get Amy. The wind was picking up and the storm was kind of getting scary—other cars had pulled off the road completely, the drivers such pussies that they refused to drive unless they could actually see the road. When I made it home and climbed to the top of the dildo store, I noticed that the neon sign had gone dark—the power must have gone out. I entered quietly and thought I’d find Amy asleep, but a quick search revealed she wasn’t home.

  This wasn’t too alarming. She couldn’t drive, but she still had lots of options. She could have hung back at work so as not to get out into the storm, or the dude giving her a ride may have had to run an errand on the way. She could have walked over to the convenience store across the street to get some junk food …

  I noticed there were dishes in the sink. Used and then washed. A mixing bowl, a whisk, two plates. Had she invited that guy from work in for breakfast? If you don’t know Amy, let me catch you up: that is absolutely not the kind of thing she does. Maybe the guy insisted? A box of Bisquick and a plastic bottle of pancake syrup were sitting on the counter. I tried to picture this dude insisting he come in—to our apartment—to make Amy pancakes, in our kitchen, and her agreeing to that …

  My brain just froze up. I mean, if they had just succumbed to passion and banged in my bed, I could understand that. I wouldn’t even be mad, as long as Amy was happy and they cleaned up afterward. But coming into another man’s house and making breakfast for his girl in his own kitchen? That’s some serial killer shit. Maybe somebody else stopped by? That’s probably all it was. Hell, it’s the sort of thing that on a different day, wouldn’t have triggered a second thought.

  I looked around for a note—Amy is big on leaving notes—and checked my phone to make sure I hadn’t missed a message. Nothing.

  I just stood in the middle of the kitchen for a moment, rain and wind crashing against the windows. I wasn’t worried, necessarily. What, like the bad guys came for her and made her breakfast first?

  I pulled out my phone and tried to call.

  I got a voice telling me the network was down.

  John

  John flinched at the cacophony overhead, then looked up to see only sky. The entire roof of the church had been raggedly peeled off like the top on a box of macaroni and cheese mix. The storm washed in and it was like he’d stuck his head into the water going seventy miles an hour on a Jet Ski.

  Half blind, John stumbled forward and reached the pulpit, trying to shield his eyes. Nymph wasn’t there, but there was a door in the wall beyond. John reached it and found himself in a small break room. Another door to the outside was standing open. John pushed through, into the storm, in time to see taillights swimming into the distance.

  John sprinted around to the Jeep and tore through the storm in pursuit. The visibility was so poor he had no idea if they were even on a road—all he could see were those blurry taillights on Nymph’s car, a tiny black convertible. John didn’t even consider backing off.

  He didn’t know who or what Nymph was and didn’t particularly care. What John had learned was that anything and everything in this universe feels pain. It’s the universal constant, it’s what keeps us in check. In his time doing this job, John had learned how to inflict all types of pain, on all types of creatures. For some it was a blade, for others sunlight, or the sound of a wind chime on a summer day.

  John would catch Nymph, and he would find out what caused Nymph pain.

  The taillights swerved and jerked in John’s windshield and each time, John followed them. The car ran off the road and back on again, tires briefly spinning for traction on the muddy shoulder. Whatever Nymph was, John knew this: the guy had chosen the wrong vehicle for this pursuit. His little sports car lost speed in the muck and nearly hydroplaned when it hit standing water on the pavement, while John’s Jeep plowed ever forward.

  Finally, Nymph made the mistake John had been waiting for. On a long stretch of clear road, Nymph had floored it, racing off into the distance for a few seconds before he hit a large puddle and lost traction completely—John just saw a wild spray of white water, the taillights whipping left and then right—

  The crash was over before John’s brain could even register what was happening. First, the little black sports car swerved right into a utility pole head-on, the taillights bouncing on impact. A split second later, John smashed into the sports car, compressing it into the pole like a beer can. Between the two vehicles, it was no contest—the Jeep had crushed the fragile little convertible to half its size. It didn’t even bend the Jeep’s bumper guards.

  For a moment, all was still. John’s fingers were locked in a death grip around his steering wheel. Steam hissed from an exploded radiator—Nymph’s, not his. The wind had calmed and once again it was just the steady rain, as if the gods’ lust for violence had been appeased with a sacrifice. John gathered himself, yanked off his seat belt, and stumbled up to the driver’s side door of the sports car. He reared back with an elbow and smashed the window.

  Empty.

  No Nymph in the driver’s side, or passenger side, or the floorboard. No break in the windshield where he could have flown through on impact. Nothing.

  John stomped back toward the Jeep—

  Blood.

  Dripping from the rear bumper.

  No.

  A little sports car like that wouldn’t have much of a trunk in the best of times, but now it had been crumpled into a mangled space no more than a foot wide. The lid sat loosely on top, and under it John could see …

  the little girl looking mangled and bloody

  … something, but it was impossible to know, in the rain. If he never lifted the lid and got a closer look, maybe he could go the rest of his life never knowing what was in there. Like Schrödinger’s cat, only by seeing what was in the trunk would it become real.

  John slowly lifted the lid and he saw bloody little hands bound at the wrists by duct tape and a round little face with its mouth taped shut. A tangle of blond hair. Terrified eyes, wide open.

  Dead eyes.

  Margaret “Maggie” Knoll. Her fragile body obliterated on impact.

  John’s heart was hammering. He couldn’t breathe.

  He gently lowered the trunk lid, then growled and slammed his fist into the roof of the car, again and again. He was screaming now. Somewhere, he thought he could hear Nymph laughing.

  John was making so much noise, in fact, that he almost didn’t hear when a man said from behind him, “Did you get him? Did you get Nymph?”

  John turned, and saw Ted Knoll.

  6. THE RAIN CONTINUES, AND ALSO JOHN DIES

  Ted was holding his shotgun, the barrel aimed down at the splattery pavement. John said nothing.

  “I saw you tearing ass down the street, I was comin’ the opposite way, re
cognized your crazy Jeep. I did a bootleg turn and followed as best I could…” Ted looked over the wreck. “Is this his? Is Nymph in there?”

  John still couldn’t speak.

  “Hey, man, are you hurt? Talk to me.”

  Ted took a step forward.

  He saw the blood.

  He looked at the trunk, then he looked at John. Piecing it together.

  John said, “Don’t look in there, man. Don’t.”

  “What? Is … is it…”

  Ted edged up to the car, the gun still pointed at his feet.

  “Don’t, man.”

  Ted turned and met John’s eyes. Just stared at him, his face a cracked dam holding back a flood of contempt. Making very deliberate movements, Ted slowly opened the trunk and took in what he saw inside.

  John watched Ted’s face. The whole mental process didn’t take more than a minute. The man stared into the trunk, let the reality of it sink in, then squeezed his eyes shut and worked his jaw.

  Then he calmly closed the trunk and, without turning around, said softly, “I thought I told you to call me. If you found Nymph. I said to call me, instead of trying to handle it yourself.”

  “There was no time, I—”

  “Do you know why I asked you to do that? To call me?”

  “If I’d had a chance—”

  “Because,” said Ted, sounding like he was using every ounce of his strength to contain himself, “this wasn’t a matter of who gets credit for taking down the bad man. This was about getting my daughter back. My daughter. Not yours. And unlike you, I have actual training.”

  “It wasn’t my fault. Nymph, he took off, I followed, I thought I could tail him back to where he was keeping—”

  “What training do you have? For anything? What have you worked hard for, your entire life? You sit at home and you play your games and you do your drugs and then when the shit goes down, you fall apart and people die. Because you don’t have the necessary skills, because practice is boring.”