The Everything Box

  For the first time, Steve noticed strange men standing in the doorway where Jerry and Lloyd had fallen. Before he could say anything, all three of the men ducked into the fire exit and disappeared. The good thing was they left the door open. The bad thing was that it let the bugs come with them down the stairs. Nothing to be done about that now, he thought. He ran with the others, not looking back.

  Two floors down, Steve rethought his position on the bugs. A group of armed security guards were coming upstairs straight at them. He and his congregation stopped when they saw them. However, the bugs didn’t. At the first sight of the leaping, chittering swarm, the guards turned tail and ran back downstairs.

  Let your Ravagers do their work, Caleximus.

  Steve and the others followed.

  Up on the ninth floor, Coop and the others were pressed against the stairway wall until the noise from below grew quiet.

  “I think it’s clear,” he said.

  “You let those things loose,” said Tintin.

  “I was trying to save your life.”

  “I’ll get over the cuts. But I’m not going to sleep for a month.”

  “Me, neither,” said Sally.

  “Well, I think it was pretty clever,” said Morty. “It got rid of whoever those lunatics were and it even cleared out Fast Eddie.” He looked at Coop. “Do you think he saw us?”

  “I don’t know. You think it was a lucky guess when he said my name?” Coop said.

  “Sorry,” Sally said. “I got frazzled when Tintin fell.”

  “Let’s not worry about it now. You okay to move, Tintin?”

  The big man nodded. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “That’s the best idea I’ve heard tonight.”

  The street was clear when they went out the employee door. A few Jiminys followed them out, flapping happily into the road. The rest clustered around a streetlamp and began eating their way in. The light blinked a couple of times and went out. Coop and the rest went down Fifth Street and helped Tintin into the van.

  “You did good tonight,” Coop told him. “I never would have seen that wire in the office if you hadn’t called it.”

  “Just doing my job.”

  Morty had already slid into the driver’s seat. Sally sat with Tintin in the back of the van.

  “All of you get out of here,” Coop said.

  “You going to be all right?” said Morty. He started the engine.

  “Just got to make a delivery.” He leaned in through the window and said, “See you two tomorrow at the Grande Old Tyme.”

  “You’re buying the drinks,” said Tintin.

  “Yeah, you are,” said Sally. “But at another bar. A place where humans go.”

  “It’s a deal,” said Coop. He stepped away from the van and watched Morty drive to the on-ramp for the 110 freeway. Coop checked his watch. It was eleven ten. Plenty of time. The job had gone a little sideways at the end, but they’d gotten the goods and they’d gotten away and that’s all that mattered.

  But who the hell were Robin Hood and his idiot mob? Another crew sent by Babylon to take them out? No. They were morons. Not pros. Even if Babylon wanted to double-cross them, he would never hire such idiots. So, who had?

  Coop shook it off and crossed Flower Street to the Bonaventure Hotel. He went through the lobby and stepped into one of the big glass elevators. As it rose to the penthouse floor he looked out the windows at the city laid out, shining and winking, below him. His face did the funny thing again. It smiled.

  He thought, I’m back.

  SIXTEEN

  THE STRANGER SAT ON TOP OF THE BIG RIG EATING A sandwich and watching the highway burn. Of course, it wasn’t the highway itself that was on fire, merely a hundred or so cars and trucks piled on top of each other like a king-size game of Jenga.

  Only with a lot more dead people and insurance headaches.

  He’d heard the term pileup many times, but he’d never seen one with his own eyes and he wondered if it would meet his demanding tastes in both the fantastic and the disastrous. As the black smoke from the burning engines and tire fires curled into the sky, the stranger finished his sandwich and applauded. For a brief moment, he thought about an encore, maybe a meteor strike or an attack of killer bees on the survivors, but finally decided against it since it would have been, as they said, gilding the lily.

  The stranger was on Highway 101 near Ukiah, California. Before the—as he now thought of it—car-tastrophe, he’d been riding in the now smashed-up big rig after the driver offered to give him a ride from a truck stop near Willows. He said his name was Bill. Just for fun, the stranger said his name was also Bill.

  “Where are you headed?” Bill asked.

  “Just south for now,” said the stranger.

  “Going down to San Diego or something? ’Cause I don’t go that far.”

  “Not that far. And I’ll be making a stop along the way.”

  Bill nodded sagely. “Oh, San Francisco. That’s where everybody wants to go.”

  The stranger looked at him. “Really? Not, say, the City of Angels?”

  Bill made a sour face. “L.A.’s too far. And it’s full of nitwits and creeps. You know, TV people.”

  “It sounds awful.”

  “It is. Smog thick enough to slice into a sandwich. Traffic like the end of the world. Weird women who sometimes aren’t women, if you get my drift.”

  The stranger didn’t, but the way the driver said it, he didn’t want to inquire further. However, the end-of-the-world comment made him laugh.

  “What’s so funny?”

  He looked out the window. “Everything. It’s a funny world, don’t you think?”

  “How so?”

  The stranger turned to Bill. “The things people believe. The things they want.”

  Bill shook his head. “You talk sideways a lot of the time, don’t you?”

  “I suppose I do. I’m not from around here.”

  Bill brightened. “That’s it. I thought you might be a foreigner.”

  The stranger grinned. “A foreigner. That’s it exactly.”

  “Well, wherever you’re from, your English is pretty good.”

  “Thanks. I try my best.”

  Bill shifted gears and the truck picked up speed. “I wondered why you didn’t talk too much. Most hitchers I pick up won’t stop flapping their gums. But I had a feeling you’d be different.”

  “Thank you. I try not to intrude on people. Even when I do a bit of redecorating.”

  Bill was quiet for a minute. “So you’re a decorator? Huh. I wouldn’t have taken you for one of those kind of people. Not that there’s anything wrong with them. I just didn’t take you for one.”

  The stranger looked at the speedometer. They were doing just under seventy. “Looks can be deceiving, I suppose.”

  “Oh boy, do I know about that. Like I said, some of those Hollywood women. There was this one time some buddies and me were partying with some gals back at the hotel, only it turns out . . . Goddammit,” grunted Bill.

  “What’s wrong?” said the stranger, glad Bill had stopped his story. It was taking a dark turn and was on the verge of ruining his good mood.

  Bill pointed to bright red lines on a GPS device mounted on the dashboard. “Looks like there’s an accident ahead. And look at the traffic. Miles of the shit. We’ll be here all day.”

  The stranger shifted in his seat to get a better look at the GPS. “An accident? Traffic?”

  And that’s when it came to him.

  The stranger looked out the window at the clear blue vacation-billboard Northern California sky. It was quite beautiful, but no, it wouldn’t do. Not at all.

  They were still a few miles from the accident, still speeding along at close to seventy, surrounded by other cars and trucks doing the same, when the fog started rolling in. Just a fine mist at first, but it quickly grew thicker and darker. Bill turned on his windshield wipers.

  “And now this shit.”

  “Are you
going to slow down?”

  “Not yet,” said Bill. “And don’t tell me my job or you can get out and walk.”

  “Sorry. I was just asking.”

  The stranger looked out the window. They were still surrounded by an armada of vehicles, visible through the fog by their headlights. He looked at the driver’s GPS device. It blinked once and went out.

  “Oh dear,” he said.

  Bill looked at it in frustration. “Now what the hell? I swear this thing is brand new.”

  “Maybe if you hit it.”

  Bill did, taking his eyes off the road for a few seconds with each whack. While Bill abused his device, the stranger’s feet touched something in the corner of the floor on his side of the cab.

  “What’s that?”

  “That’s my lunch. There’s sandwiches in there.”

  “Can I have one?”

  “What? No,” said Bill between slaps on the GPS. “I’m giving you a damned ride. Isn’t that enough?”

  The stranger reached down and opened the cooler as Bill squinted like a mole through the windshield. He turned when he heard the stranger open the cooler.

  “Goddammit. I said those are mine.”

  “I don’t think you’ll need them.”

  “What? Why?”

  They heard the first cars plowing into the stalled traffic a few seconds before the big rig rear-ended a VW Bug that loomed out of the fog directly in front of them. Bill hit the brakes. The freight container behind them swung around, knocking cars and motorcycles off the road. But it was too late for the truck to stop. Too late for any of them, the stranger thought. He took a sandwich from the cooler and closed his eyes.

  When they hit the back of the pileup, the stranger was jettisoned like a chicken from a cannon through the windshield and into the back of another big rig that had turned over directly in front of them. He hit hard enough that it should have killed him. But it didn’t.

  And best of all, he never dropped his sandwich.

  As the fog began to dissipate he could hear a few cars in the distance still plowing into the back end of the stalled traffic. The stranger shook the windshield glass from his coat and hair. He climbed over the piles of smoldering metal back to the big rig. He didn’t bother checking on Bill. He knew what he’d find. He just clambered over the top of the cab and onto the freight container. It was surprisingly quiet up there, he thought. Just some blaring car horns and the occasional scream. There weren’t any more cars to add to the pileup, which was a little disappointing. He should have gotten on the roof while they were still moving. Now that would have been a show. Still, he couldn’t complain about the climax of his little play. And best of all, the sandwich was good. Chicken salad, and not the awful kind with mustard.

  When the ambulances and TV news crews began to arrive, the stranger knew that the fun part of the show was over. He wadded up the sandwich paper and tossed it over his shoulder. When he climbed to the ground, he found a water bottle on the shoulder of the road. Ah, he thought, the play had climaxed while I was on the truck. But this, this is the denouement.

  He opened the bottle and drank from it as he started south again.

  SEVENTEEN

  QAPHSIEL’S NOSE ITCHED. HE’D TOSSED AND TURNED all night and when he finally awoke, he realized that he’d rolled away from the sycamore where he’d gone to sleep and was back in the bushes again. Always the damned bushes. He scratched his nose and arms. It had happened so many times before that he didn’t even bother getting up. He just rolled out of the bush and back under the tree. Along the way, he felt every twig, rock, and crushed beer can through the threadbare sleeping bag. He’d found the bag in the abandoned zoo in Griffith Park. Full of empty cages and walkways, it’s where he slept most nights. Sure, he could pull gold out of thin air, but even the seediest motels would rather have a wad of crumpled twenties than a fistful of extremely questionable shekels.

  The night was clear and cool, but something pressed warmly against his back. He wriggled around in the sleeping bag, banging his head against the trunk of the sycamore, and finally managed to get out the map. He sat up with his back against the tree and opened it.

  “Oh, my.”

  He’d never seen anything like it. Lines of force flew across the map’s face, swirled around and ducked under each other, only to become tangled somewhere else. Stars shot across it. Several mortal shapes glowed with celestial energy. They collided at a single space, then flew apart, like miniature supernovas. One point pulsed a bright heavenly gold. Qaphsiel knew exactly what it was: the box. And it was moving. That meant he was right and the box was still in L.A. On the other hand, it meant that the Abaddon and Caleximus worshippers were also right. Qaphsiel bit his lip. He’d missed his chance so many times before, but this was different.

  He wished there were some other angels nearby that he could show the map to. He missed them all, but Raphael most of all. Qaphsiel slept by the old tiger cages in the zoo because they reminded him of his friend. Raphael had invented tigers. Gabriel had just come up with zebras and everyone in Heaven was on a stripes kick.

  He looked at the sky and wondered what they were doing in Heaven right then. He’d be back soon. He’d never been surer in four thousand years.

  Just follow the box, blow this dump, and head back home. Simple as that.

  Qaphsiel looked back at the map and watched the golden pinpoint move, marveling at its beauty.

  And then it went out. One minute it was there, shiny like a beacon home, and then it was gone again to only God knew where, and that guy had never been any help at all in the first place.

  Dismally, Qaphsiel folded the map the way he had thousands of times before and stuffed it back inside the sleeping bag. The good news was that there were still lines of force around Hollywood. He’d just go back to his original plan and follow them until they led somewhere. Everything was going to be fine, he told himself. Just fine. He lay back down.

  “Fuuuuuuuuck!” he yelled at the stars.

  But eventually he got back to sleep.

  EIGHTEEN

  WOOLRICH’S OFFICE WAS UPSTAIRS IN THE MANAGEMENT wing in the headquarters of the Department of Peculiar Science. While the rest of the building was outfitted in the typical cubicle hell of any business office, the upper floors looked more like an old-fashioned gentlemen’s club. The walls were papered in warm colors, and expensive carpets covered the floors. At each turn of the hall was an antique chair and table that no one ever used, but it gave the place a bit of extra, if existential, class. It was also very quiet upstairs. While the rest of the building was a constant clamor, the management floor was a quiet haven, a bureaucratic chapel of silence. That’s how they liked to think of it, Nelson knew. But he didn’t buy it.

  “It isn’t a chapel up here. It’s a morgue. Ever notice how you never see anyone in the halls? Spook City. That’s why it was so easy for Carl and his buddies to possess all these bigwigs. Half of them are already on the slab, but they don’t know it.”

  “Quiet,” said Bayliss. “Someone will hear you. I’m not going down for your big mouth.”

  “No one’s going to hear us. Watch,” said Nelson. He held his arms straight out, crucifix-like. “I hereby declare myself to the service of Satan. Come and take me, you pointy-headed sex monkey.”

  “Shut up! What is wrong with you?”

  Nelson dropped his arms to his sides. “See? Nothing. No bolts of lightning, no vengeful angels, no hall monitors handing out demerits.”

  Bayliss shook her head. “Even sober you’re a menace to yourself and others.”

  “Relax. All the offices are soundproof. Big Brother isn’t listening.”

  “Of course they say that. What better way to encourage unstable agents to say what they really think?”

  Nelson looked Bayliss over. “Are those new shoes?”

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  “You always wear new shoes to big meetings.”

  “I do not.”

  “Yeah.
You do. It’s your tell. It’s a sign you’re nervous. Don’t try for a career in poker.”

  “Anyway, you’re never sober unless there’s a meeting.”

  “That’s not a tell. That’s not wanting to waste good booze on bureaucrats.”

  “You keep telling yourself that.”

  Nelson smiled. “Your passive-aggressive side is coming along nicely. You’ll have one of these offices before long.”

  Bayliss shook her head. “I don’t want to be management. I like fieldwork.”

  “More fool you. I can’t wait to sit behind a desk and be waited on by my own mook.”

  “You’ll be a mook before you get one.”

  “Dream on,” said Nelson.

  They stopped at an office with the silhouette of an animal on the door. None of the offices had numbers or names. The only way to tell them apart was by the image on the entrance. This particular office sported the outline of something spiderlike, but with horns and tentacles. Bayliss made sure to knock near the silhouette, but not on it. It looked like it might bite.

  There was an electric click and the door opened a few inches. Bayliss stepped aside, making sure Nelson had to go in first.

  “Come in and have a seat,” said Woolrich.

  Nelson and Bayliss did as they were told. Bayliss started to cross her legs, but got self-conscious about her new shoes and put both feet firmly on the floor.

  Woolrich looked a lot better than the last time she’d seen him. His face wasn’t the deathly pallor it had been during the exorcism. A little color had returned, and there wasn’t any green oatmeal dribbling out of his mouth—that was nice—but she could tell he wasn’t 100 percent back to normal. The left side of his face twitched every now and then like it was trying to make a break for it. It was hard not to stare at, but Bayliss did her best by looking only at Woolrich’s eyes. But that made her self-conscious. She was going to look like a crazy person if she fixed him with a Charlie Manson death stare. Okay. Play it cool. Look at his desk.