Vultures

by Chuck Wendig

  Here, Guerrero slips off his suit jacket.

  “It was winter in Oregon. A man drove up as I was walking home from school, and he chased me down, put a bag over my head, threw me in the trunk of his car, and drove off.”

  He undoes his tie.

  “I was not the only child he abducted. I was with seven others. We were kept in a pen outside like animals. Tall fences. Coils of barbed wire at the top. We had our jackets and we huddled together at night for warmth as the temperature dropped. Then two days later, he took one of us out of the pen, kicking and screaming. Another boy—Jeremy. We were all boys. He liked boys. We heard the boy screaming inside the man’s farmhouse.”

  Guerrero begins to unbutton his white, starchy shirt.

  “The next day, we saw him dragging the boy out by one heel. Jeremy was dead. Bloody, too. Dragged out through the icy, slushy mud. The man moved aside a piece of half-rotten plywood under a dead willow tree and tossed the boy down into what turned out to be an old, disused well.”

  He finishes unbuttoning his shirt. His chest is bare, mostly hairless.

  “This happened again a couple days later—this time, a boy named Carlos. Same situation. Screaming inside the house. The screaming cut short. Next morning, Carlos was dead, tossed into the well. We tried to escape, tried to dig out under the fence. But the ground was cold, nearly frozen, and we were young. Our hands were bruised and bloody just from trying, and he sank the fenceposts and the chain link deep. We screamed, too, shrieking into the woods, across the fields—but we couldn’t see any other houses, any signs of anything. And no one came.”

  He slips off his shirt.

  “I said, I’m leaving. And the other boys said, How? I said, I’m going to climb one of those fenceposts. I’m going to take off my shoes and get a toe hold on the chain link, and haul myself up. I was always climbing trees at home, and I thought, I could do this. So, up I went. Even as it started to rain a cold, nasty rain, I went. Then I slipped and fell, hurt my ankle, but I tried again, because I thought, I’m not going to be like Jeremy. I’m not going out like Carlos. I want to live. So, I climbed up. Inch by inch. The fence, wavering back and forth. When I got to the coils of razor wire . . .”

  He pivoted himself to reveal his bare back.

  It was laced with puffy, pale scar tissue. Not as boldly scarred as Gabby’s face, but worse overall—so many slices, each crossing the other. He didn’t have to explain how he crawled out—he went under the wire. Shimmying back and forth. The blades of the wire cutting him this way and that as he went. It was plain to see: a roadmap of his pain.

  “I was going to climb back down,” he continues, “but the blood slicked my hands and I fell the ten feet. Broke my left collarbone—”

  He rotates his left arm. She can hear a palpable popping.

  “Still clicks when I move it. Hurts a little, too.”

  “What happened?”

  “I passed out for a little while but then woke up as the rain intensified. And then I left. I walked across a field at midnight. I wandered into the woods. At some point, I was so cold and in such pain I just . . . fell over and passed out. I would’ve died if a local farmer—a pot farmer, if we’re being honest—found me, took me to the police. I helped them catch him, the man who took me. John Samuel Solomon was his name. He got the death penalty for it.” He pauses. “They found the other boys, too. Of the four remaining, three were still alive. They found the bodies of the others in the well—alongside six boys who had gone missing the previous winter. All sexually assaulted. All murdered with a claw hammer. That would’ve been my fate had I not escaped. Violated and executed by Solomon.”

  “And after that, you awoke with a new curse.”

  He smiles. “I consider it a gift.”

  “And what is your gift?”

  But he doesn’t answer. Which makes her suspect: why isn’t he telling her? After that whole story, why? It’s something he explicitly does not want her to know. It’s not incidental. It’s willful.

  What he does say is: “So, that’s why I have such intensity for catching this killer. These young male actors, they may be vapid, they may be rich little pricks, but they still don’t deserve the torment. They deserve someone trying to save them from their fates.”

  It’s at this moment that Miriam feels a pang of empathy for him.

  She understands him. She doesn’t feel bad for him, not really—but she gets it. He really does have a cross to bear. Just as she has hers.

  It makes her feel guilty that she’s about to pull one over on him.

  But she doesn’t have any choice. His story was harrowing, and his purpose may be true. He’s still keeping her at arm’s length. She still needs that name, and he still has it. It is what it is.

  As he’s putting his shirt back on, it affords her the chance to take a surreptitious glance at her watch.

  Eleven minutes.

  So, it shocks her when he, after slipping on his jacket, grabs the keys to his car. “C’mon, let’s take a ride.”

  “What?” she asks.

  “I’m tired of sitting here. Julie can watch the shop. You and I are going back out. We’re going to . . . do something. I’m tired of sitting here, and I see that you are too. I’ll make some calls on the way; we’ll get on a location shoot or a lot or something. I think HBO is doing a casting call today in Santa Monica. Maybe that’ll turn something up.”

  Shit. She needs to be here for this to work.

  Stall him.

  “I . . . don’t feel so good.”

  “What?”

  “I—you know, I’ve got the blahs.”

  “The what?”

  “The blahs. The ughs. The pukes. I don’t—” She makes a Mr. Yuk face and pats her stomach. “It’s the baby. Morning sickness.”

  “I thought you were over that.”

  “I was until you told me a story about child rape and murder. Take a moment to think about how that affects a mother-to-be.”

  His nostrils flare. “I would think it would help motivate you.” But then he wilts a little. “Okay. I see your point, though. You need to use the bathroom?” He points toward their little bathroom with a thumb.

  “I do; I’ll be out in a few.”

  “All right. Make it quick—if you can. I’m done blaming you and I’m done feeling bad. I’m ready to work if you are.”

  “You got it, boss.”

  And then she slides mopishly into the bathroom.

  FIFTY-FOUR

  THUMP-BUMP

  She sits.

  She waits.

  She checks her watch.

  Occasionally, she fakes some high-quality pukey noises.

  She pees, because, c’mon, she pretty much always has to pee.

  She imagines what that must’ve been like, to be Little Davey Guerrero, trapped in a pen like an animal with a bunch of other kids, kids you know are about to get killed and dumped unceremoniously into a well—kids you only later find out were raped before they were clubbed to death with a hammer. That miserable crawl up a fence in the freezing rain. The razors at your back. The fall. The escape, not certain if the boogeyman is coming after you, in the dark, in the cold.

  No wonder it scarred him. Physically and psychically, it seems.

  He probably still wakes up with nightmares. She wonders now if he too has a Trespasser. Wren seemed to. (Though Miriam still thinks that Wren’s specter may have just been her own, playing the game from another angle.) Still, Trespasser or no, he must be a haunted man. She has to forgive him his attitude, at least a little. He’s a dick, but now she knows why.

  Of course, Miriam is still going to betray him. Because she has no other choice. He had to make his choice and she has to make hers now.

  He knocks on the door. “You ready?”

  “Almost. Just washing up.”

  Idly, she spins the faucet, lets it run, pshhhh. She splashes some on her hands, more for the auditory effect than anything.

  Three minutes left.

>   C’mon, Steve Wiebe, don’t fail me now. They synchronized their watches and everything, like kiddie superspies.

  She steps out of the bathroom.

  “Let’s go,” he says, headed to the door.

  His computer screen is dark. Panic stabs her in the heart like an icicle. That won’t work. It has to be on. Not password-locked. But screen on and open. She improvises:

  “Hey, can you pull up your computer real quick? I want to show you something.”

  “It can wait.”

  “No, it’s important.”

  He’s suspicious. “What is it?”

  “A cat video. It’s a cat who uses a toilet and then flushes. It’s . . . pretty amazing.”

  “Miriam—”

  “Settle down. It’s related to the vision. The Taylor Bowman one. I haven’t figured out where he dies yet, but I’ve gone over the memory and—c’mon, I just need Google Maps.”

  He sighs.

  He’s not going for it, she realizes—

  Until he does. He shakes his head, awakens the laptop by lifting the screen. Guerrero quick-types in a long string of characters. What opens is his desktop, revealing an image of a black sand beach framed by lush greenery and a palm tree bulging with coconuts. David is in the picture, wearing a yellow Hawaiian shirt, holding up his hand in a gesture with the thumb and pinky out, but the other three fingers tucked to the palm.

  “Where is that?” Miriam asks.

  “Maui. Place called Hana. Ever been?”

  “I’m not exactly a Hawaii type of girl.”

  “Hana, though—you’d like it. Away from everything. Hard to access. It’s peaceful. It’s like . . . the end of the world. But in the best way.”

  “Cool,” she says, feigning interest. “All right, just pull up the maps thingy,” she says, trying like hell not to sound impatient.

  He reaches for the keyboard.

  And then, like clockwork—

  Thump-bump.

  The entire trailer judders with an impact.

  Something has hit their trailer. And Miriam knows exactly what.

  Or, rather, who.

  Guerrero curses under his breath and then stands, alarmed. He and Julie and Miriam all head toward the door—

  And as those two go out, Miriam remains inside. And she gently nudges the door shut. And then she gently locks it.

  She figures she’s got about three minutes. Outside the trailer, right now, Steve Wiebe has backed his car into the corner of the trailer. Gently, so as not to do much or any damage to his car or the structure—but just enough to kick over this anthill and make the bugs come running.

  Through the walls, she can hear the muffled murmurs of Steve and Guerrero talking: Wiebe’s tone is plaintive, apologetic. Guerrero’s voice sounds stiff, steely, and angry.

  Good.

  Miriam pulls the laptop up, now open.

  She doesn’t know a hot hunk of shit about how to actually use a computer in the way that she needs to, but Gabby gave her some instructions—the computer is a Mac, so she goes to something called the Finder and pulls that open. She clicks over to the documents and scans the list—it’s hundreds of files, various documents and spreadsheets and—

  Panic hits her.

  I don’t know what I’m looking for.

  I have no idea why I thought this would work.

  She scrolls, faster and faster, more and more anxious, as names of files zip past at breakneck, whiplash pace—

  But then—

  Team_ personnel.xls

  Bingo.

  There it is. That’s gotta be it. She clicks it open and—

  It asks for a password.

  She cannot continue until she enters in a password.

  She knows she should stop here. Let go. Give in, give up. This plan isn’t working. But she’s so fucking close. Try, she must, so try, she does.

  She types in:

  password

  Nope.

  password1234

  And, no.

  She tries three more: qwerty, 1234567890, and, finally, fuckyoufuckyoufuckyou.

  Unsurprisingly, none are the key to the kingdom.

  She sits there. Chest heaving in panic. The baby chooses now to remind Miriam of her presence, stabbing out with a hard kick, hard enough to make Miriam think the baby is literally trying to escape—just the same, after last night’s hospital visit, she’s happy to feel the kid in there at all. She doesn’t know what she’d do now if she lost her.

  Lost her.

  Losing a child.

  Trauma, terror, pain—

  That’s it.

  She types in:

  JohnEdwardSolomon

  Aaaaaand—

  No.

  “Shit!”

  Wait.

  What about . . .

  Solomon.

  One word. Just the last name. That’s how Guerrero referred to him the last time. Right? Violated and executed by Solomon. A name as much as a title. Almost mythic and biblical. She types it in.

  The file opens.

  And the angels did sing.

  Miriam lets out a mad half-laugh, half-sigh. She almost wants to cry.

  It’s a list of five names. Miriam’s is one. The rest, in order, are:

  Juliet Anaya | Clairsentience (Abhijñā?)

  Samira Abbar | Hypnosis?

  Abraham Lukauskis | Mediumship / Manifestation

  Lizzie Priest | “Bloodstopper” (folk practice)

  Each comes with a phone number and address. Two of them are here in Los Angeles: Juliet, aka Julie, obviously. And the other is Abraham Lukauskis. Abraham is the medium, and so Miriam thinks, He’s the one. Quickly, she scrambles around for a Post-it note and a pen, and scribbles down his deets. She thinks, What about the others? Fuck it; she writes those down, too. Not that she has any idea what a Bloodstopper is, or what clairsentience—Abhijña?—even means, but information is power, she tells herself, even if that information leads to fewer exclamation points and more question marks. Quickly, she folds up the note and shoves it into her pocket, and—

  That’s when the door to the office rattles against the lock. Shit! She rushes to close the windows she has open even as she hears his keys jangling, the lock turning. Miriam starts to pull away from the computer, but the wheel of the office chair is caught—the laptop pulls toward the edge of the desk as the power cable is tugged taut. The laptop clatters to the floor, the screen splitting with a hard crack—

  Just as the door opens.

  There stands David Guerrero.

  He’s surprisingly fast, taking advantage of her shock. He’s already up to his desk, grabbing the laptop off the floor even as she backs away. The screen is bright, but now bleeding weird colors behind the crack. She can feel the rage bleeding off of him like the acrid tang of expended gunpowder—and, before she knows it, he has his pistol pointed at her head.

  “You set this all up,” he says, his voice cold but trembling with the threat of boiling over. “That shit outside right now? That’s you, isn’t it?”

  “I . . . I can explain,” she says.

  The pistol does not waver. “So, explain.”

  At that, Julie comes back inside. She watches this unfold with little emotion registering on her face. Like it’s an idle curiosity to her.

  “I . . . I’ve waited long enough for you to give me the name of the medium,” Miriam says through clenched teeth. “I’ve helped you with the case. I deserve to get what’s owed to me. I started to wonder if you even had a name to give me. So, I did what I did. I set up a friend to back into the trailer so I could try to find the name on your computer.”

  “Looks like you found it.”

  “I did.”

  “You’re under arrest.”

  Tears burn at the corners of her eyes. “Don’t. Please.”

  “Miriam, we had a deal. You broke the deal.”

  “You broke the deal,” she growls.

  “Stand up.”

  Wincing, she stands. She
stares down the black eye socket of his Glock. His finger hovers just outside the trigger guard.

  She tries to imagine how she’s going to play this. She can’t go to jail. Won’t go to jail. That course of action could be exactly what leads her to the place where her daughter dies upon entering this world. She needs to be out here. She needs to pursue the Trespasser, which means finding the medium.

  So, what’s the play, then? She can’t compete with a gun held only seven inches from her head. Harriet’s strange, heart-given gift thrums through her, vibrating with secret power and promise, and maybe, just maybe, she can risk taking the bullet if she can get away—but even still, a bullet to the head will knock her flat, give them plenty of time to either put handcuffs on her or stick her in a body bag, thinking she’s dead.

  If she can just distract him, for just a moment, she can get his arms, raise the gun—but Julie is an outlier and—

  Suddenly, Julie is in the game.

  And all Miriam’s uncertainties are uncertainly answered.

  Julie draws her own weapon—a small, blunt-barreled bull-dog of a revolver. She points it—

  At Guerrero.

  (Miriam did not see that coming.)

  “Let her go,” Julie says.

  David sighs—this does not surprise him as much as it should. Something about this is something he expects, or at least understands.

  “Julie, now is not the time or the place to assert yourself.”

  “David, you know how this works. Let her go.”

  Guerrero takes what seems like a deep, cleansing breath before lowering his pistol. “Fine. Go.”

  She gives Julie a quizzical look. “What is happening right now?”

  “I have a hunch and I am making a play,” Julie says. And that’s when Miriam sees: Julie, who usually seems to demonstrate little emotion, if any, seems to be welling up. Tears gently crawl down her cheeks.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” Julie says, honestly. “That’s just how it is.”

  That’s just how it is. Spoken like someone with a curse. With a power that they do not entirely understand. Miriam feels that feeling on the daily.

  “Are you going to be okay?” Miriam asks.

  “You know I will be. Now leave while you can.”

  “You can’t run anywhere I can’t catch you,” Guerrero warns as she skirts past, out the door, and into Steve Wiebe’s car.