Glimpse

by Jonathan Maberry

  If he ate enough of it, then something bad would happen. A door would open?

  That thought flicked in and out of the boy’s mind, and he shoved it away for fear that the doctor and the nurse would somehow see it and know he thought it.

  He was afraid, though. So very afraid. They were wise and they watched him, looking for thoughts like that.

  Panic flared up in him. He knew he was onto something, but he had to play out the drama or lose his chance. The spoon would not be the consequence this time.

  And so he took a great and dangerous chance.

  He closed his eyes and let the dying hope dissolve on his tongue. He released all his resistance and let go.

  And fell.

  He fell so hard and so long and so deep. The boy fell further than he thought he would. He fell so far.

  He fell all the way down.

  The nurse and the doctor cried out with delight.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  Monk tried to go back home to Manhattan a couple of times, but he couldn’t manage it. Brooklyn kept pulling him back.

  He drove past Joplin’s building, past the police cars and emergency vehicles, and continued on to the Diner. He parked and was about to get out when he saw four familiar people framed in the window. Rain and her friends. He studied her profile. She was very pretty and very sad and right now looked like she was freaking out about something. Monk had no wife, no kids, no living family, but he felt an odd kinship toward her. Not a romantic or sexual thing. He wanted to help her, keep her safe. Or maybe it was deeper than that, he considered. Maybe it was about helping her find her power. It was there, he’d glimpsed it, but Rain had a lot of damage piled on top of it. He felt like she was in some indefinable way kin to him. Not in a blood way but on a deeper level. What Patty referred to as “spirit family.”

  He left the engine running for heat and sat in his car smoking a cigarette as he tried to make a picture of what was going on with too few puzzle pieces. Then his phone rang.

  “Hey, Patty,” he said. “You got something for me?”

  “Hey, Monk,” said the tattoo artist. “I do, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

  “That’s pretty much in keeping with the day I’ve had.”

  “Why? What’s going on? You sound wired as shit.”

  Monk told her about the boy’s body being stolen from the morgue and incinerated, and about the Japanese man and the words tattooed on his body.

  “Oh, my God!” cried Patty. “That’s horrible! What’s it mean? What are you into?”

  “Trying to figure that out, Patty.” He went to light a fresh cigarette and discovered the lit one between his lips.

  “If that boy isn’t the one you were hired to find,” said Patty, “why are you getting all tangled up in this? It’s weird, it sounds dangerous, and it’s not your concern.”

  “I can’t explain it, okay?” he said. “There’s something about this thing that has its hooks in me.”

  There was a very heavy sigh of resignation on the other end of the call. “Then you’re going to keep pushing at it,” Patty said. “We both know what happens when you do that.”

  They did. Some of the ink Patty drilled into Monk’s skin was there to hide the scars.

  “It is what it is, Pats,” he said.

  “Then add this to the stew,” said Patty Cakes. “I just got off the phone with Morty. He did a quick workup on the blood vial.”

  “And…?”

  “And it’s not blood. Not exactly. Not completely. It had blood in it, but not a lot. Morty actually asked if you were playing some kind of joke on him.”

  “When’s the last time you ever heard of me playing a joke?”

  “Pretty much never. Which is what I told Morty,” said Patty.

  “Okay. So what is the stuff?”

  “He said it was mostly water and a mix of electrolytes—sodium, potassium, and stuff like that. But there were also some proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, something called phospholipids, and urea, which is something produced in the kidneys that helps people pee. Or something. He tried to tell me all the chemistry, but I didn’t want to know.”

  “I don’t get it,” said Monk. “What is that stuff?”

  “He asked me if someone in the building where the kid died was pregnant.”

  “Why? What does that have to do with anything?”

  Patty said, “Because the stuff in that vial was amniotic fluid.”

  “Wait—what?” barked Monk.

  “He said that it’s what you get when someone’s water breaks.”

  PART THREE

  IN CHILDHOOD’S HOUR

  Children see magic because they look for it.

  CHRISTOPHER MOORE

  LAMB: THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO BIFF, CHRIST’S CHILDHOOD PAL

  From childhood’s hour

  I have not been as others were;

  I have not seen as others saw …

  “ALONE”

  EDGAR ALLEN POE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  “I started using six months ago,” said Yo-Yo. “The day after I had the first dream about Doctor Nine.”

  The others were quiet. Gay Bob held one of her hands; Rain had the other. Straight Bob’s hands were folded on the tabletop and clenched into bloodless fists.

  “I’ve been going to meetings all over Brooklyn,” said Yo-Yo. “Haven’t gotten up to talk much, and only then at meetings where there’s no one I know. I need to share, because I’m afraid of what will happen if I don’t.”

  “Did you use today?” asked Gay Bob, but Yo-Yo shook her head.

  “But I got some stuff at home. Three fixes and some clean needles. My dealer has a way of getting the disposable kind. Always clean stuff.”

  “You need to throw that shit out, Yo,” said Gay Bob. “You know that, right?”

  “I don’t know if I can.”

  “I flushed all those pills down the toilet,” he said.

  Yo-Yo pulled her hand free and flicked the Little Red Monster at him. “Fuck you did.”

  The pill bounced off Gay Bob’s chest and landed back on the table. He stared at it and after a long moment gave a slow nod.

  “I know,” he said. “But I don’t want to. And you know what? I brought it here to prove that it didn’t own me, you know? Like a drunk with an unopened whiskey bottle on his desk? What bullshit.”

  The Little Red Monster sat there.

  “Want me to flush it?” asked Rain, beginning to reach for it, but Gay Bob was so much faster. He snatched it up and closed his strong fist around it.

  The moment held, with everyone looking at his fist and then up at him.

  “Oh,” he said, “God.”

  “This is him, isn’t it?” asked Straight Bob. “Doing this to us. Giving us this stuff. I mean, Christ, you’re sitting there holding that pill like you’re drowning and that’s a lifeline. You think that’s any different than me jerking off until I bled? Doctor Nine and that nurse know us. They’re in our heads and we, my friends, are totally fucked.”

  Gay Bob had fresh sweat on his face. He waved to Betty and called her over. As she approached, Gay Bob opened his hand and dropped the pill into his half-empty coffee cup. It vanished into the brown liquid.

  “Betty,” he said quickly, “can you dump this and get me a fresh cup? Please?”

  Betty must have seen something in his expression, because she didn’t ask any questions. She took the cup away. As soon as she left, Gay Bob sagged back, exhaling a ball of burning air from his lungs. He picked up his napkin and blotted the sweat from his face.

  “That … that…”

  He couldn’t finish. Rain leaned over and kissed his cheek. “That was amazing, and I love you.”

  Yo-Yo touched Gay Bob’s arm. “Will you come over to my place and help me, y’know … deal with that shit?”

  “I’ll try,” he said.

  “This is all real, isn’t it?” asked Straight Bob.

  “Yes,” said Rain. The othe
rs nodded. “Whatever ‘real’ even means anymore.”

  “What are we going to do?” asked Straight Bob.

  “We fight back,” said Gay Bob. “I gave up that Oxy tab, and it was the hardest thing I think I’ve ever done. I’d never have been able to do it if you three weren’t here.”

  “The point is,” said Rain, “that you did. Doesn’t that mean something? Doesn’t it mean we can fight back?”

  “Maybe,” said Yo-Yo dubiously.

  “Think about it—this is an attack. We’ve all been attacked in different ways. Either we fight back or we say fuck it and give up.”

  “Personally,” said Gay Bob, “I’m leaning toward the ‘give up’ part. I’m tired of fighting.”

  Rain pounded the table with a small, hard fist. “Bullshit. I can’t give up. I have to fight because Doctor Nine has my son.”

  “I thought you said he was dead?” said Straight Bob. “You saw him in the morgue.”

  Rain shook her head. “It wasn’t him. That was someone—or something—else. Maybe it’s going to be my son, but not yet. Not for a couple of years.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve been working on a theory,” she said, lowering her voice. “Look, I think Doctor Nine showed me what was going to happen to my son in the future. Don’t ask me how because I don’t know. This is what my gut is telling me. He showed me my son. Dead from suicide because of something that hasn’t happened yet. Something either I do, or Doctor Nine does, or maybe something my son is going to do drives him over the edge and he kills himself. I think that’s what I saw at the morgue. And I think that because he only looked like my son when I put on those glasses. They’re the key. I started seeing him when I put them on when I was on the train. I saw him on the street and again outside of Joplin’s place. Every time I see my boy, it’s when I’m wearing the glasses. I think the glasses let me see the truth.”

  “Sure,” said Straight Bob, “but seeing the truth isn’t the same as knowing what to do.”

  Gay Bob held up a finger. “Right, but we skipped over some stuff. Like the fact that they have supernatural powers, or whatever it is. We don’t. They can invade our dreams and influence our actions. They can—what’s the word?—manifest things. The videos you watched, the pills I found, whatever the hell it was happened in Rain’s bathroom. How exactly do we fight something like that? It’s not like we can call the Ghostbusters.”

  “I guess we have to figure out what Doctor Nine is,” said Straight Bob, trying to sound reasonable. “Is he a demon? Do we hire an exorcist? Is he a vampire? If so, do we go get holy water, stakes, and some garlic? I’ll fight, Rain, as long as we have some kind of plan.”

  Yo-Yo said, “I know a guy who can get me a gun and—”

  “Christ,” said Straight Bob, “we can’t go around shooting people.”

  “They’re not people,” said Yo-Yo.

  “Wait,” said Rain, “maybe I know where we can start. Those two guys I met. Sticks and Monk.”

  “Great,” said Straight Bob, “a disabled veteran and a thug.”

  “Monk’s tough and he has a gun,” said Rain. “And Sticks might know how to find Boundary Street. If we can find that, maybe we can go to the Fire Zone. I think we can get help there.”

  “Whoa, wait … did you say Fire Zone?” gasped Gay Bob. “You didn’t mention that earlier, but I know that name. I dreamed about that, too.”

  “Me, too,” said Straight Bob, eyes wide. So had Yo-Yo.

  There was an immediate burst of overlapping conversation as they each shared what they knew of the Fire Zone from dreams, old and recent. Some of the same names came up. Torquemada’s, Unlovely’s, and Café Vortex. The biker gang called the Cyke-Lones. Snakedancer and Caster Bootey. Other people, too, some of whom Rain recognized and some she didn’t. Kamala Jane, Indigo Heart, Mr. Sin, Eyes, the Bishop, Europa, Brutal John, Dresden Blues … on and on. Strange affected names for people who had either left their real identities behind or had somehow transcended them. And the Music, which played everywhere and which was alive and aware but not safe.

  Talking about the Fire Zone made them all smile until …

  The smiles faded slowly.

  Gay Bob said, “We’re talking about a place we’ve all been to in dreams, but only in dreams. I don’t know what that means, but it’s not a real place, is it?”

  After a moment’s thought, Straight Bob said, “Not sure ‘real’ matters to the Fire Zone.”

  They all nodded.

  “I think I was on the edge of it for real,” said Rain. “That’s where I met Sticks. Tomorrow we’re going to try to find it.”

  “That sounds absurdly dangerous,” cautioned Straight Bob. “For more reasons than I can count, but apart from any of the Doctor Nine stuff, there’s the storm.”

  Rain glanced out the window at a newspaper being whipped and torn by the wind. “It’s been raining off and on for weeks.”

  “No, he’s right,” said Yo-Yo. “They’re screaming about it on the news. A big-ass nor’easter is going to hit tomorrow. They’re closing schools and all. Supposed to be a motherfucker.”

  Gay Bob nodded. “Maybe you should wait until it’s over.”

  Rain smiled. “Seriously? Wait? We’re talking about monsters and magic and things that go bump in the night, and you’re afraid of Mother Nature? I mean, guys, get real. Tomorrow I’m going to go looking for the Fire Zone, and no matter what I find, I’m going to talk to Sticks and Monk Addison. The same gut that tells me about my son tells me that they’re going to help me. Somehow. And, for the record, screw the damn storm.”

  As if in rebuke, the sky outside flashed an intense white that blinded them all and washed all the colors from the inside of the Diner, and a heartbeat later, there was a massive explosion of thunder that was so loud it seemed to shake the world. It was the loudest sound Rain had ever heard, and she cried out in fear and pain. The others reeled away from the window, covering their heads as if expecting the tortured glass to shatter. All the lights in the restaurant went out, and then the whole neighborhood went dark. Bang. Gone. Car alarms cried out up and down the street. When the rain began again, it was torrential.

  “G-God Almighty,” gasped Yo-Yo, and she crossed herself.

  INTERLUDE FIFTEEN

  MONK’S STORY, PART 1

  I see dead people.

  Make a joke. Go ahead; people do. Fuck ’em.

  I see dead people.

  Not all of them. My life would be too crowded. Just some. The ones who need to be seen. The ones who need me to see them.

  Yeah. It’s like that.

  The diner’s name is Delta of Venus. Most people think that’s a pun of some kind, or a reference to Mississippi. It’s not. The owner’s name’s not Venus. One of her girlfriends was. It’s like that.

  The Delta is one of a bunch of places where I hang out. Diners are good for street trash like me, and this one was close to Boundary Street. I had my spot. Corner of the counter, close to the coffee. Out of the line of foot traffic to the john. Quiet most of the time. I dig the quiet. Kind of need it. My head is noisy enough.

  It was a Thursday night, deep into a slow week. The kind of week Friday won’t make better and Saturday won’t salvage. Me on my stool, last sip of my fourth or fifth cup of coffee, half a plate of meat loaf going cold. Reading The Waste Land and wondering what kind of hell Eliot was in when he wrote it. World War I was over, and he wrote poetry like the world was all for shit. Like he’d peeled back the curtain and the great and powerful Oz was a sorry little pedophile and Dorothy was going to have a bad night. Depressing as fuck.

  The coffee was good. The day blew.

  Eve, the evening waitress, was topping off ketchup bottles and not wasting either of our time on small talk. Not on a Thursday like this. These kinds of days don’t bring out the chattiness in anyone who’s paying attention. Outside, there was a sad, slow rain, and most of the people who came in smelled like wet dogs.

  Then she came in.
>
  I saw the door open. Saw it in the shiny metal of the big coffee urn. Saw her come in. Watched her stand there for a moment, not sure of what she was doing. Saw her look around. Saw nobody else look back. Saw her spot me. And know me. And chew her lip for a moment before coming my way.

  Little thing, no bigger than half a minute. Sixteen, maybe seventeen. Slim as a promise. Pretty as a daffodil.

  Lost and scared. Looking for me.

  People like her find me. I never ask how they heard of me. In my line of work, the referral process is complicated. I get most of my standard clients from asshole law firms like Scarebaby and Twitch. Yeah, J. Heron Scarebaby and Iver Twitch. Real names. Some people are that fucking unlucky and that dim that they won’t use a different name for business. Or maybe it’s a matter of rats finding the right sewer. Not sure, don’t care. They hire me for scut-work. Skip traces, missing persons. Stuff like that. Pays the light bill, buys me coffee.

  They hadn’t sent her, though. I knew that much. She found me a whole other way.

  I signaled Eve and tapped the rim of my coffee cup with the band of my wedding ring. Still wore the ring after all this time. Married to the memory, I suppose. Eve topped me off.

  “Gimme a sec,” I said.

  She looked around to see what was what. Looked scared when she did it, which is fair enough. People are like that around me. Then she found something intensely interesting to do at the far end of the counter. Didn’t look my way again. There were two other people in the Delta. A night watchman on the way to a lonely midnight shift, and Lefty Wright, who was always topping off his Diet Coke with liberal shots of Early Times. Neither of them would give a cold, wet shit if a velociraptor walked in and ordered the blue-plate special.

  That left me and the girl.

  I didn’t turn, but I patted the red Naugahyde stool next to me. Maybe it was the color that drew her eye. I’m pretty sure it’s the only color people like her can see. That’s what one of them told me. Just red, white, black, and a lot of shades of gray. That’s fucked up. The girl hesitated a moment longer, then she seemed to come to a decision and came over. Didn’t make a sound. She stopped and stood there, watching me as I watched her in the steel mirror of the coffeemaker.