DeTarlo set her glass down on the sink so harshly, she was surprised it didn’t shatter.
“Why have you not asked me about pain, my friend?” asked Kara. “I know it intimately.”
“Is that so? And in what way?”
Kara smiled sadly.
“I have described it to you,” the Passer said. “In the last moments, I thought that surely my face and brain were melting. I fell away after less than an agonizing minute. And once I had fainted away, I could not have been revived, if even a person had tried.”
Ana furrowed her brow as if she did not believe the spirit.
As if aware of this fact, Kara seemed to relax and release a tense hold of something. Before Ana’s eyes, the head of the Passer was engulfed in vague, lightless flames, and its face blurred and melted into horrific features unidentifiable as human. The longer deTarlo stared, unblinking, the more disturbingly bright the echoes of the fiery death wreathed the head of the ghost. Kara burned and beamed with cold white light in edgeless symmetry and lost any semblance of mortality in favor of the unimaginable state of death. Ana thought she was gazing upon a beautiful flaming angel.
“Speak to the Passers,” Kara said. “We can tell you with all certainty exactly what the psychological limits of fainting-away pain are.”
CHAPTER 12
Dreamer and Aidriel had to get a room at another hotel in East Peoria, Illinois, and were too tired to care that they had to use the A.S.M. credit card again. In a daze, they fell into the beds and slept through an uneventful night, though Aidriel awoke several times in a panic. Staring unblinking into the darkness, he was sure the shadows were moving and had to pop pills so he could drift off again.
The next morning, Dreamer was roused to her phone buzzing, and rising to check it, she quietly donned the plain clothes like Aidriel’s that she had gathered before they left the last hotel. She put on her shoes and one of the new jackets and slipped silently out the door to return the call.
Aidriel hadn’t stirred, but when he got up and found Dreamer gone, he was stunned and slightly worried. He had not changed out of his clothing the night before, but Dreamer had laid out a white T-shirt and his jacket with a pair of black scrubs pants. He got dressed and carefully peeled the blood-caked bandage off the back of his head, gingerly washing his hair at the sink. Finding the injury was well on its way to healing, he went looking for his traveling companion.
She wasn’t in the gloomy lobby, or in the little kitchenette area where the complimentary breakfast of bitter coffee and greasy donuts had been set out. Neither was she at the car, or in the parking lot, or back at the room when he double-checked to make sure they hadn’t just missed each other in transit.
It was an unpleasant surprise to finally find her in the hotel’s pool solarium in the company of Dr. St. Cross, deep in a crucial conversation. As Aidriel approached, Todd spotted him first and got up from one of the tile window benches along the wall of glass panels.
“You’re the guy, aren’t you?” the nurse asked. “I looked up the video of you on YouTube this morning. Someone at the gas station next to Walmart got the whole thing with their phone of when that Passer nailed you in the throat.”
Aidriel was immediately defensive to be greeted in such a way and glared, preparing to respond rudely. St. Cross cut him off by saying his name.
“I’m glad to find you sound, for the most part,” the shrink said.
Aidriel looked at Dreamer and narrowed his eyes questioning, wagging his finger back and forth between her and St. Cross.
“What’s he doing here?”
“I told him where we were.”
“Why?”
“’Cause I thought he’d be better than deTarlo.”
Aidriel chose to ignore the fact she had made another important action without consulting him.
“You came from Fort Wayne?” he asked the doctor, in no way lowering his defenses.
“Yup,” answered Todd. “We went all the way to Columbus, then Wauseon, and back to Indy, then—”
“Who the hell are you?” Aidriel demanded of the nurse, whose face flashed surprise.
“I can assure you we had your best interests in mind,” St. Cross jumped in to ease the tension.
“Oh sure, it’s in my best interest to be left entirely out of all decisions that affect me.”
“I’m sorry,” apologized Dreamer, “the right time to talk about it never came up. We’ve been playing phone tag since the Bird Cage.”
Aidriel didn’t want to say something nasty to her that he would regret, and turned away to quell his anger. His eyes fell on the smooth surface of the water and instantly all emotion melted from his face. He realized he had not been near a pool for twelve years and had never thought of how strong the fear associated with it would be.
“You okay?” Dreamer asked him.
St. Cross shook his head for her to be quiet, but she conveyed without words that she wanted to ask more of Aidriel.
All awareness of the other three people in the room faded as Aidriel stood and stared. The pool was the only thing in the world at the moment, and it was somehow alive and watching him, waiting. The pounding of his pulse rose as it often did, but he was rooted to the spot, mesmerized by the water.
When he was seventeen, Aidriel worked part-time in maintenance at a swanky apartment complex that included a large outdoor pool. On a chilly spring morning like this one, he finished skimming the bugs from the surface of the water and added the chemicals used to maintain it. He had not seen Rubin at all that day, but noticed a shadow in the deep end of the pool as he was leaving. Walking back over to investigate, it seemed to Aidriel that the sun shining on the rippling surface was playing tricks on his eyes. He crouched down for a better look.
The first unfamiliar Passer to ever attack him was a female with long thin arms. It appeared suddenly beneath the water and flew up at him, its eyes and face and mouth a wide white window of rage. It closed its long fingers around his neck and pulled him in headfirst. He experienced the pain of water entering his lungs and never knew if death was by drowning or strangulation. Was there a difference?
Whether by chance or otherwise, the building supervisor was passing through the lobby that looked out over the pool shortly afterward. He didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, but his Passer had stood outside the glass doors and knocked against the panes. It seemed to the supe that the spirit appeared submerged; its surface shimmered with patterned white lines of light through water, and its short dark hair floated out around its head. As he watched, it blew its frigid breath on the glass of the door to fog it, tracing backward letters so the supervisor could read them. POOL. The man was confused but curious, stepping outside to have a look. He saw the teenager at the bottom, already motionless, and yelled out for help, diving in.
“Aidriel,” St. Cross interrupted the memory, and his patient tore his gaze from the shimmering water. Dreamer and Todd waited in silent anticipation.
“Are you alright?”
Aidriel blinked dully. His recollection of his first death was as fresh as if it were yesterday. That apartment supe hadn’t known CPR, though he’d tried it as best he could from what he had seen on television. He’d broken two ribs, but Aidriel started breathing again. He’d been without air for almost five minutes. It’d felt like an eternity.
“What were you thinking just now?” St. Cross asked very softly. “About when you drowned?”
Aidriel couldn’t speak, and looked back to the water. He felt the burning in his lungs, the struggle and the panic. He was still drowning. The water was calling him, drawing him toward it. His head was heavy; he was going to fall in and die again.
Dreamer slipped her hand into his to anchor him. Breathing became easier. He locked eyes with her, and she didn’t have to say anything.
Aidriel remembered when his vision had come back when he was seventeen, and he saw the supervisor
leaning over him, dripping wet and winded.
“You hang in there,” the man had said. “I know you already did.”
It only now dawned on him why hanging had seemed so right when he chose it to be his means of death. He would never let it be drowning. The noose had not hurt like drowning did.
“You drowned, huh?” said Todd insensitively. “What was that like? Is it painless like they say?”
The pain alone in Aidriel’s eyes was an answer.
“Aidriel, it’s imperative we get you to the dead zone ASAP,” St. Cross said. “I cannot think of any other safe place for you, besides the sky. It seems the only way to leave the Passers behind is to be in a plane or a balloon.”
“What about a spaceship?” asked Todd, not realizing how stupid that idea was until several seconds after he had voiced it.
Aidriel wondered what the world outside looked like; if there were legions of Passers waiting for him to make an appearance or an impending storm of them approaching. He let go of Dreamer’s hand and moved toward the windows, stepping up onto a tile bench and crouching. It was hazy and moist outside beyond the indistinct green bushes encircling the solarium. He breathed on the glass and touched his finger to the fogged surface, sliding it down slowly to draw a line. His thoughts returned, as they had many times before, to the supervisor’s Passer, which had saved his life. He had never seen it and he wondered if he had ever been attacked by it at some later time.
He remembered Rubin, standing over him as he was lying on his back beside the pool, drinking in the delicious air while the supervisor rose up onto his knees to shout at the person who had come in response to his earlier yell to phone for help.
“I’m going to kill you,” Rubin had snarled.
“Why?” croaked Aidriel.
“I hate you,” the Passer told him. “We all do. I’ve lost years’ worth of opportunities to kill you. Be sure that I will accomplish it, though.”
“Aidriel,” St. Cross said, once more breaking into his thoughts. “We need to keep moving.”
“You said you’ve been in contact with him, Dreamer?” Aidriel asked without looking back.
“Yes.”
“You know each other?” He had an idea of what the answer would be.
“Well…”
“Aidriel, I saw her once for a psych eval for her job at the Coma Center,” St. Cross said. “There’s no point in lying about it. She reminded me of you, and when I found out she was being considered for employment at the hospital, I put in a word for her. I was actually hoping she might run into you eventually.”
“I didn’t know that,” Dreamer said to the psychiatrist.
“I shouldn’t mention it in front of anyone,” St. Cross answered, “but your experience with the bear is what reminded me of Aidriel.”
“That sounds like an interesting story,” commented Todd with a nervous laugh. No one so much as smiled in response.
“What’s important,” St. Cross said, abruptly changing the subject, “is that we get on the road again as soon as possible.”
“You got that right,” agreed Todd, adding to Aidriel, “you’re a wanted man.”
“I was hoping to not have to use the card from Williams again, if that’s what you mean,” explained Dreamer.
“That is definitely a factor,” the shrink replied. “We arrived in Wauseon after deTarlo and Williams had already been there. But there is the issue of the Passers, too.”
“We’ve managed to stay at least several hours ahead of them so far,” Dreamer informed him.
“But there’re more of them each time, aren’t there?” asked St. Cross. “And it’s only going to get worse. I don’t know if either of you have been following the news but there seems to be a major exodus of the spirits from the other continents traveling in this direction.”
Aidriel finally turned from the window, a look of mild dread in his eyes. He sank down so he was sitting on the bench, and began fingering the dog tag still hanging around his neck. DeTarlo had had it altered after his last private conversation with her, and he looked closely at the additional information now engraved on it.
Somehow, hearing that a great number of unstoppable beings were coming to bludgeon him to death did not cause much alarm for Aidriel. He took the news as he would if someone were to tell him that a repair to his car would be more expensive than originally thought. It was bad news indeed, and he was disappointed and upset about it, but it did not warrant even a comment or emotional expression. He felt numb.
“Hey, is he having some kind of episode?” Todd asked curiously. St. Cross bent an eyebrow at the nurse as if to ask, Which of us is the shrink? The nurse shrugged and made a cheeky face, looking for a reaction from Dreamer, but she was ignoring him.
“Good news is,” said St. Cross, “we’re only about twenty minutes from the Peoria airport, and we can stop in Bartonville for breakfast. I convinced the pilot who took us to Fulton County to take us to Waterloo, Iowa. From there, the dead zone is about an hour’s drive away.”
“And then what?” asked Aidriel drearily. The doctor shrugged.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
Aidriel imagined standing alone in the middle of a wide open field, a circle of Passers standing just outside this purported dead zone. In this visual, none of the well-meaning people who had made a mess of his life in the last several weeks were present. They had dropped him off like a package to be delivered and went home to their own lives. He would stand alone to wait out his resolve. It would only be a matter of time before he’d give up and step outside of the safety. How could the dead zone be anything besides another prison? He’d feel smothered; he didn’t want to die that way.
“Do you know why you’ve been singled out?” Dreamer asked him point-blank. Aidriel lowered his head thoughtfully as if he had not heard.
“Are you familiar with the Paradox of Natural Judgment?” St. Cross questioned her.
Frowning in puzzlement, Dreamer replied, “Tracy has mentioned that.”
“My Passer has too,” added Todd. “I don’t think I really know what it means.”
“It means that when we die and become Passers, we make someone else’s life different than how ours was,” Aidriel answered before St. Cross could. “It means the nicest Passers suffered the most, while the mean ones led easy lives.”
“But there aren’t any mean…” Todd changed his mind about finishing his thought.
“I’m just worried that it might be the reason you suffer so much, Aidriel,” said the shrink carefully. His patient got up and walked over until he stood right by the pool, the toes of his shoes lining up with the edge. He gazed down into the water in thought and answered, “The Passers have had ample opportunity to kill me. Each time I died, I saw a white cloud in the distance like a glow without light. I felt my spirit trapped in my windpipe, trying to force its way out. The horizon turned upside down and all the heat drained out of me so I was very cold. I was just about to let my ghost out when someone brought me back to life, and I was temporarily deaf. Then any pain would suddenly come on like I had been punched.”
“What do you think it means?” asked Dreamer, hovering nearby as if worried he would fall into the water.
“It’s like…” Aidriel paused in thought, and said without understanding why, “It’s like they mean to consume me the moment I become one of them.”
He noticed the shocked expression on Dreamer’s face, and glancing at St. Cross, noted the shrink appeared disturbed as well.
“Like the dream…,” Todd began to interject.
“Dreamer,” St. Cross said quickly. “Please get everything from your room so we can leave immediately. I’d like to talk with Aidriel privately, if you please.”
Whether it was intentional or not, Dreamer’s parents had named her appropriately. In the literal sense of the word, she had vivid dreams nearly every night, except wh
en she succumbed to fitful sleep in times of high stress. But after falling into an anxious doze the dangerous night before, she’d had a brilliant dream until her ringing phone awakened her.
She pondered the sleep-vision while quickly gathering the few belongings she and Aidriel had in the room. Todd had mentioned the first dream that she and Dr. St. Cross and several others had experienced, but she wondered if any of them had had the second vision the night before.
Aidriel’s conversation with St. Cross did not take long, and he returned to the room, closing the door behind him. Dreamer was folding clothing at her bed, and sat down on the bedspread, giving Aidriel the attention he appeared to want.
“Do you know how it feels to be completely disconnected?” he put forth, his eyes vacant in thought. “As if you’re offline, or unplugged from the network; not getting any signal? Like the whole of the human race is connected with spider silk–thin filaments, but mine has broken so I don’t receive any communication at all.”
“I’m sorry,” Dreamer murmured. “It was selfish of me to make decisions without asking.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Aidriel cut her off quietly. “I just thought maybe you’d get what I mean. Maybe you were a kindred.”
Dreamer reflected on his words briefly, but her lips slowly stretched out in a tight line.
“I’m near to that, perhaps,” she explained. “But really close, I think. Close enough to experience it.”
She held out her hand and moved it as if trying to tear down a string of spider webbing.
“There might something…,” Aidriel mused aloud as if he had not heard her.
A quiet moment followed, and an outside observer might have thought the conversation had drifted into nothing because it didn’t concern the two. Aidriel leaned against the wall and glanced around as if unsure what to do next. His thoughts escaped for a moment to superficial imaginings of the future. He fancied he’d buy fruit from roadside vendors and would sweep the cobwebs from the corners of the kitchen ceiling when he got home. Dreamer would shake rugs and the tablecloth off the edge of the porch, and leave the door open to let the breeze in. Spring would find them the way it came to everyone else living normal lives, and for a time they’d be too distracted to think of the ghosts of their pasts. He would get the blender down from his cupboard for Dreamer, because she was shorter than he, and couldn’t reach it. She’d make an orange cream milkshake and would pour it into tall glasses with straws, wiping the drippings from the counter before tasting it. She would make him laugh, and he would cheer her up again when he made her cry.
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