Three A.M.

by Steven John

  It was much darker than even the pale light of the morning inside, and at first I was nearly blind. As my eyes adjusted, I could see that the air in this massive place swirled with mist, but it was lighter than out in the streets. I could faintly make out the steel bars and corrugated tin of the roof high above. Old faded windows ringed the upper walls.

  I made my way deeper into the building, in awe of the sheer amount of open space before me. I had not seen so far above my head in years. My eyes grew ever more accustomed to the gloom, and I could see row after row of massive, decaying machinery on the immense floor.

  Hundreds of pieces. Each easily fifteen feet high and the size of a city bus. Some sort of presses or molds, I guessed. Masses of wires, pneumatic tubes, and cracked paint enshrouded by cobwebs and creeping mist. Old tools, caked in dust, lay scattered about the floor along with scraps of rusting iron and other detritus.

  I walked haltingly along a row of the hulking equipment, eyes passing from one great, crumbling machine to the next. Skeletons. That’s all they were now. Skeletons no longer needed to support the works of man, left to rust just as bones bleach beneath the sun. I was walking through a silent tomb. A tomb and a monument to a time that had passed.

  So still was the air that the fog seemed to hang suspended above and around me. Each step I took unfroze a few tendrils of mist, and like a following spirit they trailed me as I walked, dancing around my legs and arms. I wondered how long had it been since another man had walked among these hulking shells. The door had been forced open and deliberately left to look as if it were sealed, but that could have been months or even years ago.

  If I had found this place sooner, I surely would have come more often. It had the reverent mournfulness of a graveyard, the breathless awe of an ancient church. A latter-day cathedral. It got my mind off Lucid Jones. I walked from one end of the enormous building to the other—it must have been a quarter mile long. I would gladly have paced the aisles all day, but was in desperate need of water.

  I made my way back to the open doorway. Fog was slowly rolling in, and I made a note to myself to reseal it behind me if I ever returned. The day was much brighter now. How long had I spent inside? Not that it mattered. I kept close to the wall as I approached the first intersection. Before turning south, I sought out and found an old, tarnished nameplate on the factory wall. FOUNDRY ROAD. Made sense.

  When I reached more familiar streets, I decided to go to a little diner I hadn’t visited in many months. I pulled a few crumpled twenties from my pocket and transferred them to my jeans. Trying to catch my reflection in the glass of the restaurant’s window was pointless—I could see only my shadow in a sea of gray. Maybe that was for the best, assuming I looked anything like I felt.

  I must have. The homely young waitress who approached my corner table kept her eyes averted from my damaged, haggard face and even seemed to be avoiding my smell. I recognized her and hoped she didn’t remember me.

  “What do you want me to get you?” she asked quietly, an almost imperceptible pause between the words want and me to get you.

  “Soup. Please. Any kind of hot soup and a glass of water. Two glasses, actually.”

  She turned and walked quickly away, and I looked around the place. It was as I’d left it. Ten, maybe twelve tables, though the room could have handled many more. Only one was occupied by two wizened old men who chattered to each other in hushed tones. One wore a faded suit and the other a heavy woolen jacket and a beige scarf, despite the fact that he was indoors and that it was still only early fall outside. As much as it was ever a season. Slightly colder or warmer was about all you got.

  Most of the fluorescent bulbs were broken, and the diner was a patchwork of shadows and light. Everything was yellowed with age and disuse. But the air was warm and smelled of cooking. I suppose it was as comforting as it could be. The waitress returned with a piping hot bowl of vegetable soup and two tall glasses of water, pushing greasy ringlets of black hair behind her ears after setting everything down.

  “It’s three dollars,” she mumbled, looking away and pushing her hands down into her apron. I handed her a twenty and she left.

  The water was tepid but still wonderful. I never had any idea where water came from anymore. Always figured it was condensed fog but feared it was just treated and recirculated. It didn’t matter; I was desperately thirsty. I drank one glass without setting it down and then sipped at the other. The soup broth was thin, but it was laden with noodles, potatoes, and carrots, and I ate it hungrily, sloppily. By the time the girl approached with my change, I was finished, and I pointed at the bowl to ask for another. She returned to the kitchen.

  When the soup arrived, along with a third glass of water I had not asked for but very much wanted, I waved her away with the change. She gave me a fleeting smile and nodded wordlessly, retreating to the farthest table, where she sat and pulled loose fibers from her socks. I ate more slowly, with more dignity, and then rose and left, not looking at the old men or at her again.

  My belly full and thirst slaked, I needed to bathe and rest, ideally in that order. Semi-consciously, I was on the way home. I had to go back there sometime … one more time, at least. At least it meant a shower and a change of clothes. Then I figured I could rest on a bench. In some doorway. Back in my graveyard factory. Any port in a storm. Part of me knew it was foolish—maybe even suicidal—but the rest of me was growing resigned to fate, and my legs kept carrying me south.

  * * *

  Fear gripped me as I washed and scrubbed the dirt and stench off my body. I dressed quickly, threw on my jacket, and left. The whole visit home lasted maybe twenty minutes. Everything had seemed in order but didn’t feel that way. I thought I’d left my tape recorder and a pile of cassettes on the table, but they were stacked against one wall. And I couldn’t find my bottle of pills. As I crept down the stairs and out through my building’s doors, I clutched Heller’s cassette through the fabric of my jacket like some talisman. I held it in my hand for a while as I made my way, for no real reason, north again.

  It was nearing twilight, and I was determined to finally confront Watley. I followed a meandering course back in the general direction of Heller’s apartment and the factory before turning sharply west and heading directly to the bar. Stupid, I knew. But I needed a bracer, anyway. Something to get my blood hot for what was sure to be unpleasant at best. I forced my mind to churn through all the mismatched facts I had. But all I kept repeating was: “This is it. This is it.” Over and over again.

  “No! No, that won’t fucking help!” I chastised myself aloud, spitting the words out venomously. I scarcely realized I was actually speaking until I crossed a clear-blown street and caught the nervous eyes of the few people passing nearby. It didn’t faze me in the least. I went on talking to myself to drown out my subconscious and sucked violently at cigarettes.

  By the time I reached Albergue’s street, I was near raving. How long ago had I left the bar, anyway? Was it even the same day? Stopping a block down from the bar, I realized that for perhaps the past ten minutes, I had been dragging at an unlit cigarette. Hand trembling, I tried to light it, but the filter was soaked with saliva and it wouldn’t pull smoke through. I dropped it and crushed the paper and tobacco into dust. Then I set my jaw and walked up the street to my trusty old tavern. I reached out for the door handle and pulled on it for the thousandth time. For the first time ever, it was locked.

  * * *

  I leaned against the bricks outside Albergue and lit a new smoke. I had come up with a pathetic plan: Since I was a man without a country, I could at least be the architect of my own exile.

  I sucked greedily at the cigarette and started walking. The orbs smiled at me as I walked. Orange-eyed spectators of my decline. I was heading southeast. A bit delirious with abandon. I kept moving, my fear replaced by fatalism.

  “Fuck it, then!” I suddenly cried out into the night. “Fucking do it! Come get me, Jones! Come get me, fuckers!” I stopped walking and
stood there, panting, my blood beginning to boil. “I’m right here! I’m Thomas Vale and I’m here!” I screamed as loudly as I could, my voice cracking. I drew the little knife from my pocket and lurched onward toward my destination.

  I crossed clear-blown Eighth Avenue and found it empty. Pausing in the middle of the street, I leaned back and let out a long, ugly howl. My throat was raw, but I lit a cigarette and lumbered off down another street, slapping my palm onto each glowing orb.

  Before me, I heard glass shatter. I stopped dead, my heart pounding. My bloodlust faded and I was terrified again. Silence reigned. The cigarette dropped from my hand and I looked down as its little orange glow fizzled out on the damp pavement. Then I was walking again, quickly, the tiny knife raised before me.

  I passed an orb post and lurched toward the next. A shadow flitted past me in the haze, and then in a loud explosion of glass, the orb shattered before me. I let out a deep, animalistic growl. From behind came another crash. I wheeled round to find nothing but gray. I could see no orbs. Another crash came from down the way, and I set off running toward it.

  I never heard a single footfall other than my own, but from out of the gray, now and then, came the shattering of the orbs, and I stumbled through black gray mist, chasing ghosts with my blade.

  My breathing ragged and my energy spent, I collapsed against a wall. The entire street’s orbs had been destroyed before me. I had neither seen nor heard a soul. As I sat there, coughing and moaning, I was confused and sickly overjoyed to find my mouth turned up into a smile. “Is that you, Jones? Is that you?” I called into the haze. “I’m right here! Vale is right here!”

  Nothing.

  Eventually, I got my breath back and rose. Fuck it all. This hadn’t affected my plan. I just needed to make a detour, now that I was sure I could never go home again. Navigating against the walls, I found my way back down the street past the dead orb posts and on toward Salk’s store. The three pills in my pocket weren’t going to get me through more than a single night.

  * * *

  Surprise and then a fleeting look of dismay played across Salk’s unsightly face as he looked up to see me standing before his glass window. I realized that it was barely a week since I had been here. I normally came monthly, if that. But here I was with my bruised eye and pale skin, out of drugs and asking for more. I thought to explain it to him, but his sad eyes made me feel very tired, very distant.

  He looked down as he spoke to me through the grimy window. “Do you need more, Thomas?”

  I nodded. He nodded back, very slowly. “It would be better if you came back later. Tomorrow or another day, even. It would be better if you weren’t here right now.”

  “I can’t, Salk. I need them now.” I can’t go home, I continued silently to myself. He sighed and looked around at the sparse shelves lining his office, shuffling slowly around in the cramped room. Then he put one hand to his head, rubbing his temples with a thumb and forefinger. Still in this position, he said, eyes closed, “Out back then, Tom.”

  I forced a smile and turned to walk out onto the street. The air was dark and thick. It would have been right about the time autumn began. It was cooler and the nights were growing longer. When raindrops fell through the fog all the way down to the streets, it would be winter. Spring came when it rained no more, and then very little changed—just the hours of darkness, really—until now: this invisible, barely tangible fall.

  I stepped off the main street and into the gray alley that led back behind the pharmacy. My hand trailing along the brick wall, I came to the corner, turned and followed it until I found the back door. I waited. Salk was long in coming. I lit a cigarette, smoking slowly, my left hand in my pocket fiddling with my three pills.

  Eventually the door opened and Salk stood there, his stooped shoulders and large, oval head framed by the soft yellow lights glowing within. I stepped closer to the doorway where he could see me. He smiled slightly and shook his head, as if dismissing a thought.

  “I lost the rest, by the way. Not like I used them all.”

  “That’s fine. Don’t worry about explaining yourself to me. I’m the last to judge.” He came out into the alley and shut the door behind him, careful to leave it an inch ajar. Salk dug into one pocket, looking up at me.

  “What did you do before the fog, Tom?”

  My cigarette hung limply in my lips. How to answer that question accurately? “I didn’t do much worth writing down. I was in the army for a bit. Before, that I guess I just kind of stumbled through my youth. Why?”

  “I never asked.” He pulled a bottle of pills from his pocket. It rattled as he lifted it to study the label. “Here. Maybe this isn’t what you wanted. I’m sorry.”

  I took the bottle and looked down at it, not comprehending. “I’m sure they’re fine, man. No worries.” I pulled out a few bills—forty dollars or sixty, I knew both would do and didn’t care either way—and held them out to him. “Thanks like every time,” I said, smiling.

  “Not this time.” He didn’t reach out for the money, cleared his throat, and looked down. “This time is different. No thanks to me, Thomas. I’m so sorry.” He rubbed his face with both hands, again muttering, “I have so many regrets, I don’t know how to stomach another. I’m so sorry.”

  I lowered my hand slowly. “Salk…” He looked up and quickly reached out, placing a hand on my shoulder. He gripped me firmly for a moment, nodded, and then turned to go. As he pulled open the door, framed again by the softly glowing lights, he said over his shoulder, “Tom. You should do yourself a favor and don’t take those.”

  He shut the door. I stood still as a statue. Then from the dancing mist came a series of sharp, mechanical clicks. From both sides of me. A low groan began: a deep bass hum growing ever louder and higher pitched. The air around me swirled more and more violently. The dollar bills dropped from my hand and drifted off in the breeze.

  My heartbeat quickened. My knees buckled and my hands went cold. As the wind picked up and the hum turned into a howl, I realized I knew the sound: blowers. A loud, grating noise began, and suddenly the air around me was growing clear. I could almost make out a pair of blower fans up the way. They looked to be on the back of a truck bed. Shaking my head to snap out of my paralyzing trance, I turned to run.

  Blinding lights burst on from down the alley. Silhouettes darted before them, and then the lights were so bright, I couldn’t see. The blowers raged in the small alley, and the air rushed around me, clearing and howling. I fell to my knees. Could barely see the ground. Voices through the swirling air and then a pair of shoes were before me. I was panting, disoriented—terrified.

  Slowly, I leaned back to sit on my ankles, rubbing my eyes. Then I looked up past the pair of still shoes, past a dark blue suit to see his face. The man from Research. He looked neither angry nor satisfied. There was even a slight smile in his eyes. I knelt there and he looked down for a few seconds, and then carefully hitched up his slacks and lowered himself to my level.

  “Very predictable,” he said quietly.

  “What was?”

  He shook his head a bit and then reached out, quickly but with a calm, steady hand, and stabbed a syringe into my left thigh. He pushed the plunger all the way down before I had time to react with so much as a grimace. I looked up at him. He drew out the needle and stood. Already I was growing faint. The gray crept back into my vision despite the blower fans, which were now fading to silence. I was vaguely aware that I was on my side, watching his legs recede. The lights grew dim and I felt, as my eyes closed, that maybe many hands were clutching at me. Maybe I was very alone.

  8

  My head pounded. I was sure that my eyes were open, but I could see nothing. I thought to get up out of bed and stumble into the bathroom for a handful of aspirin. I needed water. Then the couch and sleep and no thinking. There was throbbing at my temples and behind both eyes. The bed felt so hard. I coughed and the pain in my skull turned to agony and finally my eyelids peeled open.

>   I was not at home.

  White walls. The room was maybe ten by fifteen with very high ceilings. I was lying on a concrete floor next to a simple cot. The sheets and blanket on the cot were in disarray, used recently. I was on my back, and that was all I could see of the room. Slowly, my brain pulsing, I rolled away from the wall with the cot and looked across the room.

  Two men sat on chairs molded of concrete on either side of an iron door. They wore gray fatigues and caps and were clean shaven, and each had a pistol holstered and a long rod that looked like a cattle prod hanging from their belts. One straightened up as my eyes met his; the other, on the left, didn’t. He just stared at me.

  My tongue, like a dry piece of leather, played across my chapped lips. I tried in vain to conjure up a bit of saliva. Finally, rasping and croaking, I slid up onto one elbow and said, “Hi, fellahs.”

  The one on the right leaned over to his compatriot and whispered something. The other nodded and then they were both silent again.

  “So…” I winced as I pulled myself up to sit Indian style, leaning back against the cot. “What’s um … what’s going on?” Nothing. I raised a finger and, hand trembling, pointed to the guy on the right. “You … chatty Cathy … what’s up with you?”

  “Don’t talk to me,” he said.

  “Okay, how about you?”

  “Don’t talk to him either,” said the first one, leaning forward a bit on his stool. I hung my head and shook it from side to side. I guess I knew something like this was coming, but I had hoped it wouldn’t be so clinical. So official. Matching uniformed guards with evil-looking tools. I turned and, using my arms as much as my legs, hefted my aching body up onto the cot. I sat with my feet on the floor and my hands clasped together, looking at the two stoic faces of my new friends. I decided to keep pressing my luck. Whatever was coming was coming, and I wanted to know about it or at least accelerate it as much as possible.