John was always bitching about “Wally” and how greedy “Wally” was and how he should have given me a raise by now. He didn’t realize that there was no person named “Wally” in the Wally’s organization. That was the name of the DVD-shaped mascot on the store’s sign. I never had the heart to tell him.
I parked and engaged in a discussion with John, transcribed as follows:
“John? We’re at Wally’s. You need to get up. John? John? John? You need to get up, John. John? I can see you breathing, so I know you ain’t dead. You know what that means? It means you gotta get up. John? Come on, we gotta go to work. John? Are you awake? John? John? Wake up, John. John?”
I finally climbed out of the car and walked around to his door. I reached for the handle, and froze.
His eyes were wide open, staring blankly through the glass. He was still breathing and blinking, but not really there.
Great. Now what?
If you’re thinking, “Call an ambulance,” I admit that’s what a smart person would have done. What I did was experiment for a few minutes, poking him and slapping him on the cheek and getting no response. Finally I found I could lure him through the door by taking his cigarettes and holding them out as bait. He walked like a sleepwalker, slow and shuffling, otherwise unresponsive.
Once inside I planted him in front of the computer behind the counter, reached around and brought up a spreadsheet to play on the screen in front of him. If anyone came in, he would appear to be sucked into his work on the PC. I looked at the scene, considered, then grabbed his right arm and propped up his chin with it. There, he looked deep in thought now.
I put away returns and boxed up Tuesday’s new releases so Tina wouldn’t have to. I pretty much managed to look normal for the few customers who accidentally missed the Blockbuster two blocks down the street. When I got some time to myself after lunch, I flipped through the yellow pages, picked up the phone stuck to the back wall and scooted up a chair.
Two rings, then, “St. Francis.”
“Yeah, uh,” I said awkwardly. “I need a priest.”
“Well, this is Father Shelnut. What can I do for you?”
“Um, hi. Do you have any experience with, like, demon . . . ism? Demonology, I guess. Like possession and hauntings and all that?”
“Wellllll . . . I can’t say that I’ve personally dealt with anything like that. People that come to me and say they’ve seen things or, say, they feel a kind of unexplained dread in their homes or hear voices, we usually refer them to a counselor or, you understand, a lot of times medication can—”
“No, no, no. I’m not crazy.” I glanced over at John, still catatonic. “Other people have—”
“No, no, I didn’t mean to imply that. Look, why don’t you come talk to me. And even if you need to talk to a professional I got a brother-in-law who’s real good. Why don’t we do that? Why don’t you come in and have a talk with me?”
I thought for a moment, rubbed my temple with my free hand.
“What do you think it’s like, Father?”
“What what’s like?”
“Being crazy. Mentally ill.”
“Well, they never know they’re ill, do they? You can’t diagnose yourself with the same organ that has the disease, just like you can’t see your own eyeball. So, I suppose you just feel normal and the rest of the world seems to go crazy around you.”
I thought, then said, “Okay, but let’s just suppose I honestly, I mean, in reality ran into something from beyond the—OW!”
It was a pinch on my thigh, like a bee sting. I flung myself upright, toppling my chair, letting the handset bang off the wall. I shoved my hand into my pocket, tried to pull out the syringe I had lifted from John’s place.
I couldn’t pull it out.
The blasted thing was stuck to my leg. I pulled, felt skin and hair come loose. I hissed through clenched teeth, my eyes watered.
I yanked, tearing the syringe free and out of my pants, turning out the white pocket with it. I saw a dime-sized hole in the white fabric, stained red. I saw a drop of the black goo now hanging out of the end of the syringe. Now, I’ll try to explain this without cursing, but the black shit that came out from that motherfucker looked like it had grown fucking hair.
No, not hair.
Fucking spines. Like a cactus.
Did I mention that the stuff was moving? Twitching? Like it was trying to worm its way out of its container?
I ran into the employee bathroom, holding the syringe at arm’s length. I thought about tossing it down the toilet, had visions of the stuff multiplying in the city sewer, and then threw it in the sink instead. I ran out, got John’s lighter from his shirt pocket and came back and held the butane flame to the squirming blob. It burned, curling up and around like an earthworm. The end of the syringe browned and melted along with it, stinking like charred electrical wires.
The soy sauce, the black stuff from Planet X or whatever it was, burned in the flame until it became a tiny hard black crust in the sink. I shook it off the end of the misshapen syringe and washed it down the drain, ran five minutes’ worth of water after it. The syringe went in the trash.
I stumbled back out of the bathroom, shaking as if chilled. I picked up the phone, said, “Uh, are you still there? Hello?”
“Yes, son. Just calm down, okay? Nothing you’re seeing is real.”
There was a strange, venomous warmth spreading through my thigh.
“Look,” I said, “I appreciate your time but I’m really starting to think there’s nothing you can—”
“Son, I’m going to be honest with you. We both know you’re fucked.”
Pause from my end.
“Uh, excuse me?”
“Your mom writes on the wall with her own shit. Big changes are coming to Deadworld, my son. Waves of maggots over oceans of rot. You’ll see it, David. You’ll see it with your own eyes. That is a prophecy.”
I jerked the phone away from my ear, looked at it like it would bite me. I slowly hung it back on the cradle—
“David Wong?”
I spun around. A bald black guy in a suit stood at the cashier counter.
“Yes . . .”
“Detective Lawrence Appleton. Please come with me. Your friend, too.”
“No, I, uh, can’t leave the shop. John and I are the only ones—”
“We’ve already contacted the owner. He’s sending someone in to cover for you. You’ll lock the door on your way out. Please come with me, sir.”
CHAPTER 3
Grilling with Morgan Freeman
I WAS ALONE in the “interview” room at the police station; the one-way mirror was to my left. In it I saw myself slumped in the chair, the disorganized black hair, the beard stubble that had crept onto my pale face like mildew on white porcelain.
Man, you need to lose some weight.
I had been in there for thirty minutes. Or two hours, or half a day. If you think time stops in the waiting room at the dentist, you ain’t never been alone in an interrogation room at a police station. This is what they do, they throw you in here to stew in the silence, all your guilt and doubts burning a hole in your gut so the truth can spill out onto the tile floor.
I should have gotten John to a hospital. Hell, I should have called an ambulance as soon as I got off the phone with him this morning. Instead I’ve fucked around for twelve hours and for all I know that black shit from the syringe was eating through his brain that whole time.
That ability to see the right choice, but not until several hours have passed since making the wrong one? That’s what makes a person a dumbass, folks.
Morgan Freeman stepped in and laid a manila folder before me. Thick paper. Photos. A white cop followed him. Something about their manner pissed me off; like they were swooping in on prey. I wasn’t the bad guy here. I wasn’t the one selling that black shit. But now I get to listen to these douchebags tell me everything I should have done instead of what I did? There was no fucking time for that.
>
“I want to thank you for coming down, Mr. Wong,” he said. “I bet it’s been quite a night for you. Been a long night for me, too, as a matter of fact.”
“Okay.” You know what helps? A warm glass of go fuck yourself. “Where’s John?”
“He’s fine. He’s talking to another officer just a few rooms from here.”
I actually couldn’t name the actor the black guy reminded me of, so I stuck with Morgan Freeman. Though now that I looked at him he bore almost no resemblance. This man was heavier, with round cheeks, a goatee and a shaved head. I couldn’t remember what he said his name was. His white partner had a crew cut with a mustache. Almost a G. Gordon Liddy, a cookie-cutter cop from central casting. I couldn’t help but think how much cooler he would look if he would just shave his head like his partner. Morgan should say something to him about that.
“John is talking?” I asked. “Really?”
“Don’t worry, man. Since you’re both gonna tell the unvarnished truth, you don’t gotta worry about your stories matching, do you? We’re all friendly here. I ain’t here to make you piss in a cup, or to lean on you about all that mess that happened your last year in school with that Hitchcock kid.”
“Hey, I had nothing to do with—”
“No, no. Don’t even bother. That’s what I’m sayin’, I’m not here to accuse you of nothin’ at all. Just tell me what you did last night.”
I had a knee-jerk impulse to lie, but realized at the last second that I hadn’t actually done anything illegal. Not as far as I knew. Sounding guilty anyway, I said, “Went to a party out by the lake. I came home just after midnight. I was asleep by two.”
“You sure about that? You sure you didn’t go over to the One Ball Inn down on Grand Avenue for a nightcap?”
“What’s a nightcap?”
“Your buddies were all there.”
Well, officer, I really only have the one friend . . .
“No, I had work this morning. As you know. I went straight home.”
I knew I should be talking about the Jamaican. Only my knee-jerk impulse to never volunteer anything to the cops was holding me back. That was stupid. Robert Marley should be sitting here, not me. He was the one handing out the black voodoo oil that seems to have put a crack in the universe. That’s got to be a felony, right?
I thought about that shit, moving, out of the syringe like a worm. Then I thought of that substance being inside John, and shivered.
“You feelin’ okay?”
I heard myself say, “Uh huh.”
As I said it, a strange, jittery energy rose up inside me, radiating from the chest out.
The syringe.
In my pocket.
Biting my leg.
The spot of blood.
Moving. Inside John. Inside me.
All of a sudden everything was too bright, like somebody turned up the saturation on all the colors in the room. Everything came into high focus, a high-def signal. I spotted a moth on the opposite wall, and noticed a small tear in one of its wings. I heard a guy talking on his cell, and realized he was on the sidewalk outside the building.
What the fuck?
I looked the detective in the eye. I was startled to find I could see his next question coming before he even spoke it, word-for-word . . .
Have you heard the name . . .
“Have you heard the name Nathan Curry? Guy your age, parents own a body shop here in town?”
My heart was hammering. I muttered, “No.”
How about Shelby Winder?
“How about Shelby Winder? Heavy girl, senior at East Side High? Ring a bell?”
“No. Sorry.”
Clarity lit up my mind like a sunrise. Everything was obvious now, all the walls of the maze turned to glass. I immediately knew two things: this list of people had all been at the party last night . . .
And they were all now dead or heading there.
Now how do I know that? How do I know any of this? Magic?
You know damn well why. That black shit John took made blood contact with you. Now you’re getting high, partner.
He asked, “What about Jennifer Lopez?”
“Oh. Yeah. I know her.”
“Not the actress, now, but—”
“I know. I saw her last night. Is she okay?”
“Arkeym Gibbs?”
“No. Wait, yeah. Big guy, right? Black? I don’t know him, but he was the only black guy in my high school . . .”
I trailed off, studied the detective’s face. No, this was not another day at the office for this guy. He’s seen things, the kind of things that sit in the brain, like a tumor, poisoning everything around it. I saw all through him, just like that.
He’s got two kids, two beautiful daughters. He’s suddenly very, very worried about the world they’ll grow up in. He’s Catholic, wears a gold cross around his neck. But today he’s taken it off, put it in his pocket. He keeps sticking his hand down there and rubbing it between his fingers. He thinks the end of the world is coming.
It’s not that I could read the cop’s mind. I couldn’t. I just read his face. We all can tell by the look in somebody’s eyes that they don’t think our joke is funny or that they don’t like what they’re eating or whatever. It was just like that. The information was there, presented in the subtle play of facial muscles from microsecond to microsecond.
He read off more names. Justin White, Fred something, a couple others. I didn’t recognize any of them and told him so. The last name on the list was Jim Sullivan.
So Cucumber was right to worry.
I didn’t tell Morgan I knew the name. In the years since I’ve wondered how many lives could have been saved if I had.
“You’re not outta school even three years. You went to high school with most of these people, East Side. But you only knew the one girl?”
“I kind of kept to myself.”
“And then you got shipped off to the other school—”
“Look, I’m not saying anything else until you tell me whether Jennifer is dead or alive. That ain’t confidential information and I deserve to know.”
Don’t bother. He doesn’t know.
“We don’t know. You see, that’s the problem. That’s why I got six hours of overtime already today. At least nine people were at the One Ball at closing time, twelve hours ago. Four of them are missing. Your friend is here.”
He paused, probably for effect.
“The rest are dead.”
It’s funny. Up until that point, despite all the evidence that had been provided to the contrary, it had never hit home how much trouble I was really in. I thought about John, again wondering if I had killed him by not rushing him to the ER.
I turned and looked at myself in the one-way mirror. The image was distorted, the other cop out of range at the back of the room. What was left was just me and Morgan, the clean-cut protector of the people, standing tall over the slumped, unshaven kid in a battered video store T-shirt that looked suspiciously like it had been wadded up on a car floorboard for two days. Good guy and bad guy. Trash man and trash.
“What about Justin Feingold and the guys John was with?” I asked. “Kelly and—”
“They’re fine. I’ve already talked to ’em, the whole band. They went home before the party moved on. Which brings us to my next question. Your friend is the only known survivor of the One Ball Inn and—now don’t take offense at this—but he ain’t lookin’ too healthy right about now. Did he say anything this morning at work? Maybe while you guys were putting away the last night’s porno returns?”
The white cop across the room stepped forward, put his hands on his hips. Waiting for an answer. Morgan left his gaze on me, calmly waited for me to fill the tense silence. Old interrogation trick.
“John called me last night, talking crazy, clearly out of it. Paranoia, hallucinations, the whole bit. This would have been around five A.M. I came over. He was acting, well, crazy. Seein’ things. But otherwise okay. Conscious, you know
. Not, like, puking or convulsing or anything. I calmed him down, we went and got some food. That was that. We went to work.”
“What did he say? Exactly?”
“Monsters in his apartment, said he couldn’t remember how he got where he was, so on.”
“Did he say what he was on?”
“No.”
“You know we can find out anyway, right? We’re not interested in booking a bunch of your raver friends for poppin’ pills. To somebody like me, the dead bodies are what matters. And if somebody’s sellin’ poison, right now, as we talk—”
“No. I’d tell you if I knew. You’re a cop, you know I’m tellin’ you the truth. So, what, that’s how everybody died? Overdose?”
“This Jennifer Lopez, she was your girlfriend?”
“No.”
I thought about repeating my question, then stopped. Instead I replayed his question in my mind, focused on it, studied every contour of each word, was almost terrified to find I could glean libraries of information from between each syllable. In an instant I learned volumes by what he didn’t say, by the way he breathed, the minute twitch at the corner of his mouth, the slight widening of his left eyelid on the third and fifth word.
This detective last ate seven hours and fifteen minutes ago, two Egg McMuffins and four cups of coffee. You can smell it in the oils seeping through his skin. Check out his posture, he hasn’t slept in twenty hours. He forces a smoothness into his voice, wants to come across cultured but shrewd. He tells people his hero is Shaft, but it’s really Sean Connery’s James Bond. In his daydreams he sees himself hanging off a helicopter in a tuxedo.
And then, in a blink, I knew everything he knew. I saw the fate of each of the dead kids from the One Ball.
Nathan Curry had committed suicide, shot himself in the temple with a little .32 caliber pistol he kept hidden under his bed.
Arkeym Gibbs took a swim, fully clothed, in his family’s swimming pool—they found him floating facedown a few hours later.