Ex-Purgatory

by Peter Clines

  “My car’s gone,” said St. George. He looked up and down the street. “Actually, weren’t there at least four or five parked on the street when we went in?”

  “There were six on this block,” said Stealth, “not counting your own Hyundai. Two Fords, two Hondas, a Chrysler, and a Volkswagen.”

  A low growl made them turn. St. George balled his fists. Stealth raised an eyebrow. She didn’t look worried.

  The car roared around the corner and lit them up with its headlights. The vehicle shot toward them without slowing. It tore down the road with its driver’s-side tires riding on the line of yellow dashes. Stealth took two quick steps back to the sidewalk. St. George stood his ground and stared into the headlights. The car missed him by inches. It was an old Mustang, a classic muscle car. Half of its body panels were still bare primer, the other half were glossy black.

  It slowed at the corner stop sign, long enough for the driver to give St. George the finger and call out a few muffled insults. Then the Mustang rumbled back up to full speed and vanished down the street. The sound of its engine echoed in the air for a few moments and then faded away.

  “Son of a bitch,” said St. George. He blinked away a few spots the headlights had left in his eyes. The street stayed bright even after the spots vanished.

  They looked around at the street. Now there were five cars scattered along the curb on either side of the road, gleaming in the streetlights. One of the Hondas was gone, replaced with a small drift of leaves. George’s Hyundai was still nowhere to be seen.

  In the distance, he heard the faint rumble of more cars. The bars were closing down and people were either heading home or out to after-parties. Most of them were heading east or south toward the freeways.

  “Your hands are clean.”

  He looked down. The smears of blood and dark tissue across his knuckles had vanished. The stains on the fleece jacket were gone, too. He looked over his shoulder at the bar. “Okay,” he said, “as far as everyone in there knows, did we just run out without paying for our drinks?”

  “Focus, George,” she said.

  “We don’t want them calling the cops on us.”

  “There are no police to call. This is all just an illusion.”

  “Right.” He looked west. “How long do you think it’ll take us to reach Westwood on foot?”

  Stealth flexed her fingers. “It depends on what we find on the way.”

  FREEDOM RAN PAST the packs of homeless people gathered around a few grates. People assumed Los Angeles was always sunny and wonderful, but the past few years had taught him otherwise. There wasn’t any snow, but it got cold enough at night to endanger anyone’s health. Even now, half an hour before sunrise, he caught wisps of his breath.

  His morning run was almost done. It was a winding route from his Hancock Park apartment, through Beverly Hills, and then down to the recruiting office. He’d measured it out to an even eight miles. He ran it every day, rain or shine, in under forty-five minutes, depending on traffic lights. At the end of the day he ran it home.

  The Army may have been done with him, but he was determined to stay worthy of his uniform.

  There were more street people all along his route. They held out desperate hands as he strode past them. There seemed to be hundreds of them these days. He knew the economic crash had left many people in a bad place, but it seemed like the number of homeless had doubled or tripled in the past few months. A few of them tried to follow him every morning and night. They’d stagger toward him with their hands out, mouthing silent pleas. At his pace, they fell behind before most of them even reacted to his passing. He tried not to think about them while he ran.

  Sometimes, though, in the deserted city of predawn, there was something unnerving about them. In the shadows their poses and sluggish movements struck him as aggressive, even a bit dangerous. He wasn’t sure why. Their hands seemed less pleading and more … hungry.

  There was one stretch of Wilshire Boulevard that cut through the Los Angeles Country Club, right between Beverly Hills and Westwood. Tall hedges bordered the road on either side. If he encountered other pedestrians or bicyclists here, it meant stepping off the curb and running in the road. There was nowhere else to go for two-thirds of a mile. On those dark mornings, when the homeless were gathered there, he often thought of it as Donner Pass. He wasn’t sure what made him pull that particular name from history. The street wasn’t high in the mountains or buried in snow. Which left one option. The hungry option.

  At West Point he’d had a recurring dream after writing a paper on the Donner Party and how their situation could’ve been resolved aside from resorting to cannibalism. The dream had come back, as of late, and he’d had it two or three times in the past month. Maybe more.

  In his dream, however, eating other men hadn’t been a last resort. The settlers had changed into soldiers under his command. He was a captain again, in charge of leading them to safety, but he kept getting conflicting orders from the President for them to stay put. Then the whole group, dozens of men and women with skin gray from frostbite, came at him like some ancient horde. Their teeth snapped at his fingers, their hungry hands grabbed at his arms and neck.

  Wilshire sloped down a steep incline toward the Federal Building and 405 (he still hadn’t picked up the Californian habit of addressing all freeways as “the”). Freedom pumped his arms and thrust his legs at the ground. Banks, stores, and apartment buildings flew past him. There was no traffic on the road to judge his speed by, but he was sure he was breaking the posted speed limit.

  He cut down Manning Avenue and slowed to a walk when he hit Lindbrook, still three blocks from the office. There was something on the sidewalk up ahead. For a moment he thought a car might’ve gone up over the curb. Whatever it was had more than enough mass.

  Then the shapes firmed up in the morning haze. A dozen crates and shipping containers, the super-sturdy ones edged with steel, sat in front of the recruiting office. They reminded him of the cases he’d seen at traveling USO shows, the ones designed to hold equipment.

  A woman half leaned in the door frame behind one of the larger cases. Her head was turned away from Freedom, and her red hair was twisted into a messy braid. She wore jeans, but her top was an Army Combat Uniform jacket with fuzzy patches instead of insignia. Her arms were crossed in a way that seemed more defensive than casual.

  He let his boots hit the ground a little harder as he covered the last few yards between them. The slap echoed along the sidewalk and she turned. Her face was dotted with freckles. Just enough to keep her looking young, although the scowl lines around her mouth helped cancel it out. “Good morning, ma’am,” he called out to her.

  “Morning,” she said. “You Freedom?”

  He held out his hand across the crate. “Lieutenant Freedom. What can I do for you?”

  She pried one of her arms away from her chest, took his hand, and shook it once. “Dr. Danielle Morris,” she said. “I’m supposed to do a recruitment demonstration for your office?”

  “I wasn’t expecting you so early.”

  He released her hand and the arm folded back to her chest. “They wanted to drop everything off before breakfast. I’m guessing rush hour is pretty nasty around here?”

  Freedom gestured at the eight-lane street with his chin. “This is going to be pretty close to a parking lot in another hour. Didn’t mean you had to come, though, ma’am. The demonstration’s not until noon.”

  Dr. Morris patted the crate in front of her. “Cerberus is still my baby,” she said. “I go where it goes.”

  Freedom kept his face straight and managed not to grind his teeth. Another civilian who didn’t understand schedules. He glanced at the crates. “So this is it?”

  “Yep. The Cerberus Battle Armor System.”

  Freedom looked up and down the street. “Weren’t you a little worried leaving all this on the sidewalk, ma’am?”

  “I didn’t leave it,” she said. “I’ve been with it the whole time.”<
br />
  “I meant, weren’t you worried someone might take it?”

  “Again,” she said, “sitting here the whole time. Plus, these are all a little too heavy for a snatch and grab.” She gestured at one of the cases, a two-foot cube, with her chin. Her arms seemed glued to her chest. “That’s the lightest one and it’s close to a hundred pounds.”

  He studied her for a moment. “Are you all right, ma’am?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Because you seem a bit tense.”

  “I’m fine, I just …” Dr. Morris took a deep, calming breath and forced her arms down to her sides. “Can we get inside? I don’t … I’d rather talk inside.”

  The crates were about five feet from the recruiting office doorway. He glanced between the entrance and the pile a few times. “Is it just you?”

  “The rest of my team should be showing up around ten. They’re still back at the hotel.” She followed his gaze. “I was told there’d be a hand truck,” she said.

  “There may be,” he said. “Do you mind waiting a few more minutes while I check the back room?”

  She closed her eyes for a moment. “Sure. No problem.”

  After unlocking the door and deactivating the alarm, Freedom learned there was, indeed, a hand truck. He pushed two cases of flyers off it with his foot and wrestled it out through the office. She looked relieved to see him again, and even more relieved once she stepped inside.

  It took just under half an hour for him to work the crates through the door and stack them in front of Taylor’s desk. Dr. Morris watched from just inside the door and gave instructions as he loaded and tilted the cases. He could tell she was trying not to snap at him when one of them bumped the door frame.

  When he was done he let the door swing closed. Her shoulders relaxed a little when the latch clicked. “Better, ma’am?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I’m sorry for acting strange.”

  “Quite all right.”

  “I have agoraphobia,” she said. “It’s usually pretty mild, I just felt … I don’t know, really exposed out there. And I’m sorry if I messed up anything you had planned.”

  “Beg your pardon, ma’am?”

  She waved a hand at the cases stacked in the center of the office. “I pissed off a lot of people insisting on this trip, didn’t I?”

  “I couldn’t say.”

  She smirked. “Couldn’t or won’t?”

  “I couldn’t say.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought. I’m sorry if I messed anything up. I know the Army loves schedules.”

  Freedom almost laughed. Almost. “If you don’t mind my asking, ma’am,” he said, “why were you so insistent on coming out here?”

  The smirk faded and Dr. Morris stared down at the crate. “I was pretty sure … I thought you’d need Cerberus here.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am?”

  She squared her shoulders and stared at him. “I remember what LA is like. I knew you’d need me here. Me and Cerberus.”

  “Los Angeles isn’t as bad as some folks think,” he said. “It’s not a paradise, but it’s nowhere near as bad as it was back in the seventies and eighties. Or so I’m told.” Freedom furrowed his brow and tried to remember all the information they’d sent him about Morris. “You’ve been out here to Los Angeles before?”

  “August of 2009,” she said. “I flew in with the suit for …” Her voice trailed off. “My mind just went blank, sorry.”

  “Not a problem.”

  “I came here in 2009, on a military transport,” she said. It wasn’t so much directed at him as thinking aloud. “My team was on another plane, I was with Cerberus, and we were out here for …” Her face twisted in frustration.

  They stood there for a moment in silence.

  “If you’re settled for the moment, ma’am,” he interrupted, “I need to wash up before opening the office.” He gestured at his running clothes.

  She gave him an absent nod.

  Freedom stepped into the back, stripped off his T-shirt, and left it hanging in his locker. He spent ten minutes washing up in the small bathroom behind the office. One advantage of his shaved head was easy cleaning. When his run had been scrubbed off, he toweled off his face and chest and swiped some deodorant under his arms.

  He set his towel aside, tugged a fresh tee over his head, and pulled on his coat. He checked his nametag and patches in the mirror and bit back the usual pang of regret at the sight of the single bar on his chest. A glance at the clock told him he had another twenty minutes before the office needed to open. Plenty of time to get Dr. Morris squared away and maybe still get caught up on—

  Someone rapped on the front door.

  He paused. It was early for someone looking to enlist, and all of the staff members had keys. Sometimes the homeless banged on the windows. Every now and then a car would kick up some gravel. But the noise had sounded much more deliberate.

  “Ummm … Lieutenant,” called Dr. Morris. Another set of quick raps echoed on the glass of the front door.

  He brushed himself down and stepped out into the office.

  Across the room, the front door framed two figures. One was the man who had appeared at the office earlier in the week. The one who’d brought up Freedom’s demotion. The other figure was a beautiful dark-skinned woman in a black trench coat who looked familiar. It crossed his mind she might be an actress, although he couldn’t think of what he might’ve seen her in. Or why the crazy man would be with her.

  “I think they want to get in,” said Dr. Morris.

  “They’re not part of your team, are they, ma’am?”

  She shook her head. “Nope. I think … they look kind of familiar, though.”

  As Freedom crossed the room, other people appeared out on the sidewalk. At least a dozen figures were closing in on the couple at the front door. More homeless folks in ragged clothes. Their pleading hands were held out and their mouths moved in a constant stream of words that came through the glass as pops and clicks.

  For a brief moment, he considered ignoring the couple. The homeless people could be annoying, but he’d never heard of them hurting anyone. Not in this part of town, anyway. Then the thought of Donner Pass danced across his mind. And the hungry hands.

  He sighed and unlocked the twin dead bolts on the door.

  The couple slipped through the door as soon as they could fit. The woman pushed it closed again and snapped the locks shut, one with each hand. Up close, Freedom was even more certain he’d seen her in a commercial or magazine.

  But there was something else about her, too. Her stance. The way she held herself. Something about the woman made him think of career soldiers, although he couldn’t remember ever serving with a woman even remotely as gorgeous as this one.

  “Thanks,” said the crazy man.

  “Of course,” said Freedom. He glanced at the figures out on the sidewalk. “Is there something I can help you with?”

  The woman glanced at his insignia. “Lieutenant John Carter Freedom?” She glanced back at the man. “He is not a captain?”

  “No.”

  Freedom bit back a growl.

  The man looked at Dr. Morris across the room. A smile broke out on his face. She stared back at him. “Wait a minute,” she said. “Is your name George?”

  “Yeah,” said the man. “Do you remember me?”

  That was right, Freedom remembered. He’d said his name was George.

  “I think so,” Dr. Morris said, “but I’m not sure from where. Are you with DARPA? Or a college?”

  “Not quite.”

  The other woman, the supermodel type, studied the cases. “This is the Cerberus suit?”

  “Yeah,” said Dr. Morris. “How’d you know?”

  Freedom wondered as well. The Cerberus Battle Armor System wasn’t a secret. The recruiting office had been showing footage of it for a few months now, and there were YouTube clips of it online. It wasn’t getting major news coverage, though, and yet here we
re two people who happened by his office on the day it arrived. Both of whom seemed very familiar with the battlesuit and its creator.

  Maybe too familiar.

  He straightened up. “Ma’am,” he said, “sir, what can I do for you this morning?”

  “We’re here for you,” said George. “Both of you.”

  Dr. Morris raised an eyebrow. “Sorry?”

  George glanced at the supermodel, who gave a slight nod. “This is going to sound a little strange,” he said, “but you’ve both been having a lot of dreams, haven’t you? Things that should be nightmares, but aren’t?”

  “Yeah,” said Dr. Morris. Her arms pulled back up and crossed over her chest. “How did you know?”

  George gestured at the crates. “Do you dream about being in the battlesuit? About fighting monsters?”

  Her eyes went wide. “Yes,” she said. “They’re always all around me. They’re like a swarm. A horde.”

  Freedom stiffened at the word. He wasn’t sure why at first. Then he remembered the Donner Pass.

  The supermodel noticed his reaction. She was sharp. “You are having similar dreams,” she said. It was more of a statement than a question.

  “No,” he told her, even as an image of gray-skinned settlers flashed in his mind. It occurred to him he still didn’t know who the woman was. “No, I am not.”

  “It’s okay,” said George. “Someone did something to our minds. It’s not your fault you can’t remember.”

  “My fault?” said Freedom. He felt his hands clench into fists and forced them straight. “What are you implying, sir?”

  “Someone did what to our minds?” asked Dr. Morris.

  “We are wasting time,” said the supermodel. “Convince them the direct way, as Madelyn convinced you.”

  “She didn’t really convince me, remember?”

  “George,” she said, “we do not have time.”

  He sighed and looked at the crates. He pointed at one the size of a desk and glanced at Dr. Morris. “That’s the back section, right? Armor plates, spinal computer, all that stuff? It’s, what, three hundred and fifty pounds, not counting the case?”