Thief of Souls

  “We’re glad the police didn’t take you away from us,” said Carol.

  Dillon began to feel his gut slowly churn and he knew it wasn’t just the cold.

  “Don’t worry,” said her husband, taking his hand. “We’ll protect you.”

  “We’ll take care of you,” said one of the others, rubbing Dillon’s sleeve.

  “We won’t let them hurt you,” said another, reaching out and touching Dillon’s hair.

  This is wrong, Dillon thought. This is terribly, horribly wrong.

  “We’ll follow you,” said another voice. “And we’ll help you do your wondrous works.”

  “We’ll tend to your needs,” proclaimed another.

  “We’ll be your servants.”

  “Because we’ve seen your glory.”

  “We’ve been blessed.”

  “And you’ll bless us again.”

  “And again.”

  More hands. Dozens of hands, reaching out, touching his skin, his hair, his clothes. He felt himself raised from the ground, and as he looked into the clouded sky, he realized why this all felt so wrong.

  His unique talent for making connections showed him a new pattern emerging in the world around him now. There were always a million possible roads, and a million possible futures, but now, every road focused toward one end: a murky darkness of chaos and ruin.

  A year ago, during his own dark time, Dillon had sought to trigger the ultimate act of destruction. A quiet whisper that would precipitate a massive chain reaction, eventually shattering every relationship, every connection, every mind until the entire world became like the maddened mobs in Burton. Dillon had thought he’d failed to achieve that final act . . . but now he wasn’t so sure. What if his “great collapse” had simply taken a different course? The swarming patterns of destiny he saw when he looked at these people around him seemed to scream back the same answer.

  The destruction never ended.

  It just hid, dormant until now—and all the fixing he had done would soon be overshadowed by a new threat. Some bleak chain of events spreading forth from this moment, that not even he could foresee.

  He wailed again in the pain of this revelation, but the crowd ignored all his protests, as they carried him off in the cradle of their happy, needy hands.

  IN THE RANDOM RUSH of water, a pocket of stillness formed where the Columbia River had caressed Dillon Cole’s body. With Dillon’s passing, the entire river slowed . . . and a tiny portion of the river ceased its swirling, defied entropy and came to order, touched by Dillon’s unique gift. It became an oasis of focused calm, beneath the surface of the raging river.

  The calm pocket carried within it the simplest of bacteria, born from rotting leaves and dead salmon farther upstream. Only, now those bacteria didn’t swarm and divide haphazardly. Instead, the single-celled organisms drew toward one another, aligning and dividing in unison; positioning themselves in a choreographed mitotic dance—a perfect pattern, as if the millions of bacteria were all of a single mind.

  Farther downstream, where the river spilled into the Pacific, plankton fed on the aligned bacteria, and in turn tiny shrimplike krill devoured the plankton. Farther from shore, a school of fish, ten thousand strong, gobbled up the krill with ease and swam south, their tight formation suddenly becoming more perfect, and more orderly than it was possible for a school of fish to be, as it headed south, toward shark-infested waters.

  2. WAKE-UP CALLS

  * * *

  AT NINE A.M. EASTERN STANDARD TIME, WINSTON PELL bolted awake from a chilling dream to the sound of breaking glass. He knew the sound well by now—it came as regular as clockwork. If it wasn’t his window, it was Thaddy’s, or his mother’s, or the window in the living room.

  Thaddy, who should have known better, came scurrying into Winston’s room. “Stone! Stone! It happened again!” He yowled as his feet came down on the broken glass.

  “Thaddy, your brain’s gotta be off in orbit.”

  Thaddy hopped onto Winston’s bed. “Ow, ow, ow,” he whined, but let Winston look at his bleeding feet. Thaddy trusted his big brother’s judgment, now that his big brother had grown taller than him again.

  “You’ll live,” said Winston.

  “How’m I gonna walk?” Thaddy asked angrily. He frowned as if it was Winston’s fault. Winston sighed. Maybe it was. He patted Thaddy’s soles with a balled-up corner of the sheet. He wished he could heal Thaddy’s feet, but his own repertoire of gifts didn’t include Magical Suture.

  Their mother walked in, turned on the light, and shook her head. First at the broken window, and then at Thaddy’s feet.

  “We’re gonna make the glass-man rich,” she said, then carefully stepped over the glass toward Thaddy, examining his feet. “I just hope it won’t need stitches.”

  The suggestion made Thaddy groan. She took Thaddy off to the bathroom for Bactine and Band-Aids.

  Winston stepped into his slippers and gingerly crossed the floor toward the broken window.

  A heavy branch had punched through the window like an elbow. Winston noticed that the tip of the elbow-shaped limb held new growth that hadn’t been there yesterday. The tree would have to be cut down to save the house. Just like the tree that had rooted up the septic tank, and the one that had lifted the home off its foundation.

  The fact was, ever since Winston had come home from his mysterious journey west, he wasn’t the only thing growing like a weed. He stood five foot eight now, and while his predicted height was expected to top out at six foot one, the plants and trees around their home had no such limit. These days, his mother’s garden coughed up blueberries the size of tomatoes, tomatoes the size of cantaloupes, and cantaloupes the size of pumpkins. The grass had to be mowed on a daily basis, and you couldn’t see the house for the trees.

  “Some green thumb you brought home with you,” his mother had said when they first began to notice how profound Winston’s effect was. “Guess we’re gonna get lifted to the clouds by a beanstalk one day.”

  As he contemplated the trees invading his bedroom window, a feeling came to Winston’s limbs, like a fugitive breeze.

  A cold river. A wail of agony. A cry for help.

  What had he been dreaming about? It was coming back to him now, and the memory made the tight curls of his short-cropped hair feel as if they were curling tighter.

  He was dreaming about Dillon Cole. Something was wrong in the dream; Dillon needed help. There were hands all around him. The hands meant to comfort, but did not. One thing more . . . Winston knew this was not a dream. Dillon had cried out, and Winston had heard it—it was not his imagination. It had to be a pretty nasty bit of business going on, if Winston could feel it this far away.

  He’s in trouble, thought Winston. Well, good. He deserves it. I won’t go help him. Winston had seen the damage Dillon had done. Buildings destroyed, people turned mad. When they had parted ways, Dillon claimed to be repentant—claimed that it was all because of the dark parasite that had leeched onto his soul. But how much of it was the beast, and how much was Dillon? Winston found it hard to have any sympathy for him.

  In the bathroom, his mother bandaged Thaddy’s feet. Winston watched her, marveling. She had been out of her wheelchair for almost a year now. Winston’s touch, which had once been the cause of her paralysis and all forms of stunted growth, was now responsible for making her get up and walk. His curse under the tyranny of his parasite had turned into a blessing once the thing was dead: a gift of growth in every sense of the word.

  “Heard you thrashin’ in your covers even before the window broke,” his mother said, finishing up on Thaddy. “Must have been some fright you were having.”

  I won’t go help Dillon, Winston told himself.

  “Just a dream,” he told her.

  “Guess that’s what you get for sleeping in.” His mother never probed for details. Winston had never spoken of his experiences out west to her, and she had the wisdom not to ask.

  They ate breakfas
t quietly, Winston’s mind full of heavy, distracting thoughts. He knew his mom could read the troubled look on his face.

  “You know, I’ve been thinking of putting the house up for sale,” Mom said. “Too much bad blood between us and the neighborhood, anyway.”

  Winston shook his head sadly. Folks around town hadn’t known what to make of him before, and now they surely didn’t. But that was okay. Winston had grown to understand them a bit better now. Their fears. Their superstitions.

  “Momma,” he said, before he knew the words were coming from his mouth. “Momma, I gotta leave.”

  His mother took a deep breath. It had become her habit to take Winston’s pronouncements in stride.

  “I suppose it was only a matter of time till you outgrew this place,” she said. “Although I didn’t think it would be so soon.”

  “Stone ain’t outgrown it,” chimed in Thaddy. “His feet don’t hang off the end of the bed or nothing.”

  Winston chuckled. “That’s not what she means, Thaddy.”

  In the year since coming back home, Winston had found himself driven to think. To learn. He had pulled down all of his father’s dusty books—the ones his father had treasured—and he read them all. “Education is a black man’s greatest ally against injustice,” his father had been fond of saying. He kept a fine library that was left to his wife and sons when he died. Books of science and art, classic literature and world history. Volumes on philosophy. Great thinkers, with grand thoughts. Winston downed all he could at home, at school, at the library. He hadn’t come up with any grand answers to the mysteries of life yet, but now at least he felt he knew some of the questions. He had grown to know how much he didn’t know.

  But that wasn’t why he had to leave.

  I won’t head west. He struggled to convince himself. I refuse to help Dillon Cole. But there was a gravity pulling on him now. He knew he could resist it, but didn’t know if he should.

  Thaddy just looked down, his thoughts buried in his cinnamon toast. Winston’s mother took a long look at Winston, with a certain wonder in her eyes. He let her have her moment. To be honest, he felt kind of teary-eyed himself.

  “I know you’ll do great things for this weary world,” she said. “I’ve got faith in that.”

  A few hours later, he kept her faith cloaked around him as he boarded the bus alone toward all points west, and Dillon Cole.

  THREE HUNDRED MILES AWAY, the yolks of a dozen eggs oozed through their smashed shells, blending with the milk, Gatorade, and maple syrup that spilled forth from their ruptured containers. Everything in Tory Smythe’s arms had fallen to the ground in the wake of her sudden vision, and now the polished white floor of the spotless convenience store was a disaster of running colors and wildly clashing aromas.

  Max, Tory’s boyfriend, surveyed the mess. “That’s not good,” he said lamely. “I told you we should have taken a basket.”

  The clerk ran out from behind the counter, his face stricken, as if someone had unexpectedly died in the aisle. “Look at this!” he shrieked. “How could you be so clumsy, you stupid, stupid girl!”

  He ran to the back room to get a mop. Tory was pale, unsteady. She gripped the handle of the glass refrigerator case to keep her balance.

  “Are you okay?” Max asked.

  She was shivering from the cold, although it wasn’t cold.

  She was recoiling from the touch of their hands, but no one was touching her.

  She was screaming, but it wasn’t her voice she heard—it was—

  “Dillon!”

  Her boyfriend eyed her uncomfortably. The clerk returned with the mop, bucket, and about a gallon of Lysol. “Stupid, stupid girl,” he said again, in case Tory hadn’t heard him the first time.

  Tory grabbed Max’s hand, hoping his steady fingers would keep hers from shaking. “Let’s go.”

  “But . . . the shopping list,” he said. “Your mom can’t make breakfast without—”

  “Just forget about the damned list!”

  Max gasped, and ripped his hand from hers. “Tory!” he said. “What’s wrong with you?”

  Tory sighed. “I’m sorry,” she told him. She grabbed his hand again, and he reluctantly clasped his fingers around hers.

  Behind them the clerk had mopped up much of the mess, yet continued mopping at the same maniacal pace, as if the spill were acid that would eat through the linoleum. Tory knew he would mop and mop until nothing was left to mar the purity of his clean white floor. It reminded Tory of the way she bathed. Compulsively scrubbing to pull away dirt she knew wasn’t there, but still felt all around her. These days, her skin was cover-girl smooth, instead of oozing with open, infected sores as it had been a year ago. Now her hair had a fine blonde sheen, instead of being a matted greasy mess. She had been cleansed beyond any shadow of doubt, but sometimes she could still feel the filth, like a ghost, and the only way to get rid of it was to wash and scrub. The way this ridiculous man scrubbed at his clean floor.

  Tory couldn’t watch, so she left, pulling Max along with her.

  The Sunday-morning streets of the neighborhood were full of people walking hand in hand. Children played games, the elderly sat on benches feeding exceptionally healthy pigeons. A Cuban couple smiled at a group of African-American teens on the corner, and they waved back. A Korean man walked a little Anglo girl across the street.

  “It’s a nice morning,” Max said.

  “Yes,” said Tory. “Nice.” The fact was, every morning was “nice” in her neighborhood. The streets were clean, the alleys were free of grunge, and anyone who didn’t pick up after their dog was reported by the Neighborhood Watch—which everyone belonged to. The neighborhood was safe, spotless, and uncorrupted. Strange, because this part of town was called “the Miami Miasma” and was the worst neighborhood of the notorious Floridian metropolis.

  “What happened back there?” asked Max.

  What happened? thought Tory. I think I got a wake-up call from an old friend. But all she said was, “I guess I slipped on the floor wax.”

  A policeman strolled past them, grinning. But when he took a look at Tory’s feet, his expression changed to one of suspicion.

  “Hmpf,” he said, eyeing Tory warily as she passed.

  “Maybe you ought to roll down your socks,” whispered Max, “so people won’t see how dirty they are.”

  Tory glanced down to see a few stray spots of egg yolk splattered on her socks and Nikes. Normal people, she knew, wouldn’t care about how clean her socks were, but the people who now resided within her extended aura were not exactly normal. They were . . . clean.

  “I don’t care if people see,” she muttered.

  Max bristled. “Whatever.”

  They turned down an alley that had once been full of fetid cardboard and rags—a place where the destitute took shelter. But there were no homeless here anymore. No one was exactly sure what happened to them, and apparently no one in the neighborhood cared.

  Tory stopped walking, overcome by a wave of cold nausea that dragged her back to her vision of Dillon. She leaned against the brick of the alley, and Max looked at her with concern, trying to make sense of her odd behavior. He gently touched the smooth skin of her face “You’re cold,” he remarked. “Tory, are you sure you’re okay?”

  Tory closed her eyes and thought back to the day she arrived here, in November—almost a year ago—in search of her mother, who had vanished from her life years before. Back then, this part of town had been the armpit of civilization, aspiring to even less attractive regions of the anatomy. There was no discrimination in the Miami Miasma. The dregs from all nationalities were drawn here equally.

  She had found her mother in a welfare hotel, destitute and wheezing with bronchitis. Tory had nursed her back to health remarkably quickly. And, amazingly, the woman began to find in herself the qualities of a good mother. Before long, Tory noticed other things changing around her as well. Actions and attitudes of the neighbors began to slowly shift. The evidence of
it surrounded her even now as she walked with Max. A group of small children ran through the street picking up litter as if it was the best game to play. From across the street came the caustic hiss of a shop owner sand-blasting decades of soot from his building. Strolling all around them were sparkling-clean men and women oozing an almost Victorian refinement. The whole neighborhood had become a strange mix of accidental übermenschen—an anomalous set of people suddenly rising above the random violence and lewd behavior that had once been a part of their lives, repulsed and mortified by the sights and smells of urban decay. Turns out, the Miami Miasma cleaned up real good; now, not even the garbage smelled.

  It was still hard for Tory to understand and accept that she was the cause of all this. Not by anything she did, but by her mere presence. It was an aura that penetrated the streets around her like radiation, cleansing it, body and soul.

  Of course, just a few blocks away, the wretchedness still lived on in the places where her light did not reach.

  “Tory, are you sick? Do you have a fever or something?” asked Max. “Maybe you’re getting the flu.” It obviously hadn’t occurred to him that no one in this part of Miami had come down with the flu this year.

  “Max,” Tory dared to ask, “do you remember what you were like before?”

  Max blinked at her in total innocence. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, when I first met you?”

  Max’s shoulders twisted in a shiver. “I was awful. Let’s not talk about it.”

  The fact was, he had been worse than awful. He was a gangbanger with neither conscience nor remorse for any of the brutal things he did. He bragged about his gun, and longed for the day it would take a life. Tory had despised him. The way he and his cohorts would hang out on the corner, shouting rude, lusty comments at her as she passed had made Tory hate leaving the small apartment she and her mother shared. She had feared that one day the verbal assaults might turn physical when those thugs were too drunk or aroused to care.