by Bill Alive
But Mark was staring at his own fingers. Moving them, one by one, like a baby.
“Mark?”
“It’s true, Pete,” he said.
“What? What are you talking about?”
“And here I thought I was shitting him. Who am I to go all Dalai Lama, when I never stop bitching about having to do web work and not being a Real Detective? But it’s true, for real. I’m alive. I have a hand, even.”
“Mark, the vents—”
Mark laughed. “Dude, you heard Theodore. He prepped this. This thing is airtight, and the air filter’s hosed.”
“But if we call someone…” I checked my phone. No bars. Like Roger had said. “Mark! Try your phone!”
Mark laughed again, bemused. “Of course I would wait to feel it until I’ve got ten minutes left. But these ten minutes are going to be awesome.”
“Mark! Please!”
But he closed his eyes and stretched his arms wide.
“Mark!” I shouted. I’d forgotten to keep worrying about Roger and Theodore, because my head was now thudding with pain, like the panic had morphed into an actual migraine. “What the hell are you doing?”
He didn’t answer. He laughed, loud, deep and long and clear, his blasts of joy echoing off the metal and nearly drowning Roger’s gibbering. He jabbed his arms wide, wider, his fingers reaching, like they could taste the air, until the fingertips on one hand touched the metal of the wall and stroked it like the face of a friend.
“In the midst of death,” he chanted, “we are fucking ALIVE!”
“Mark…” I tried to say, but my head was hurting so hard it was difficult to talk. “Your phone…”
I reached for his pocket, but the lightness and the headache had made me dizzy. I stumbled and crashed to the wood floor. I tried to push myself up, but my stomach clenched with nausea, and I sank back down, clutching my gut.
At the bolted door, Theodore suddenly lunged at Roger’s neck. I thought he would choke him, but he didn’t. Instead, he yanked hard, and a brown necklace thing came away in his hand.
Roger grabbed at his own neck, now bare. His face blanched with fresh panic.
Theodore jammed the gun in his belt so he could use both hands to tear apart the necklace. It was two long strands, like shoelaces, connected at either end with a cloth square. He pulled the squares off, one by one.
“Dear God, Roger,” he said, taunting. “You’re going to die without your scapular. Are you sure you’re in a state of grace?”
Roger’s eyes bulged with terror, a terror beyond anything I’d ever seen, even from him.
He clutched his head, crashed to his knees, and started panting some prayer. “O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee … for having offended Thee … dear Lord, how does it go … O my God, I detest all Thy just punishments … no no…”
Theodore said, “Roger! You can’t absolve yourself. Without a priest, you need perfect contrition. Sorrow from pure love. Not a particle of self-serving fear. Are you sure? You look kind of scared—”
Roger roared like a wounded animal.
“Give me yours,” he hissed.
He flew at Theodore’s neck. He caught Theodore by surprise, and at first, he tackled the weaker man down onto the seat. But Roger’s shoulder had just been shot. Theodore used both hands to pry Roger’s one good fist away and then easily held him off, laughing. His laugh made me sick.
My head was throbbing now, my thoughts were getting muddy. It occurred to me that even though I didn’t believe in hell, not a hell where you screw up once and get sentenced to infinite torture, I was staring right here at the real hell. The undeniable, empirical fact that anyone anywhere can make themselves into a monster. And no one else can fix you if you don’t want it.
Not even God. If there is one.
Speaking of meeting God … I was also getting flashes of Mom and Dad, and Ceci, and my first scraped knee with my first two-wheeler, and wow, I had loved that bike, and also, wow, flooding with childhood memories was a really bad sign.
And meanwhile, Mark was laughing his happy laugh, and booming, “ALIVE … ALIVE … ALIVE,” like a prayer, while the others writhed and howled.
Maybe death just makes us what we are.
But I was so not ready to go there.
I clenched my teeth and focused all the energy I could muster on one thing — Mark’s phone. If I could just grab a shelf, lift myself, get a hand into his pocket…
Too late. I tried to hunch up, but that tiny movement alone split my head like an ax. I crumpled down…
… I might have gone under…
… and then BAM BAM BAM, someone was beating on the door.
“Police!” a woman hollered. “Open this door!”
“Gwen!” I croaked. Would she even hear me over the others? “It’s carbon monoxide, Gwen! And the door’s bolted!”
“What?” she yelled. “Pete, is that you?”
I tried to shout again, but my stomach clamped and I wrenched in agony.
Above me, Mark’s chant died.
He twisted and collapsed, sprawling down the aisle. The smile on his face had frozen.
Chapter 45
On the morning that Ceci drove me back to St. Joseph the Worker Catholic Church, the weather was cold and gray and drizzling.
“Are you going to be okay?” Ceci said.
I shrugged, watching the drops smash into my window and dribble down to their deaths. “I’m alive,” I said. “Good enough.”
But I actually felt pretty bad.
I made it okay through the church lobby, but at the glass doors into the actual church, I froze. Through the glass, the church was dim, and the usual rainbow windows were gray and dark. My eyes locked high above the altar, on the huge crucifix.
My mind flashed back … the whipped Christ in the metal tank … my cold clinical phone light on the gashed and gobbing flesh…
Ceci touched my arm. “Pete?”
I sighed. “Might be awhile before I can deal with a church.”
Her face fell.
Part of me felt bad, since she’s all super Christian. But she hadn’t been down there.
“I understand,” she said, though I didn’t see how she could. “How’s your head?”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m fine, Ceci. Stop worrying.”
Turns out, carbon monoxide isn’t just fun and chuckles at the time of the exposure. You can develop nasty side effects long after, and it’s pretty much random. Some people do, some don’t. And some of the more exotic and lethal options don’t even appear until a whole month’s gone by … or more.
“Pete, all I mean is that we need to catch any possible symptoms early. That’s all.”
“I’m alive,” I snapped.
She turned away.
Across the lobby, at the glass front wall that faced outside, a priest was surveying the grim weather. His wide priest robe thing was supposed to be white, but in this light, it was gray. Everything was gray and shadowed.
All of a sudden, he started whistling. It was kind of creepy … the empty lobby, the storm, this random priest whistling alone.
He turned, saw us, and nodded. “How about this weather, huh?” he chirped across the lobby.
I shrugged. “It’s not so bad.”
He looked confused. “For a wedding?”
Beside me, Mark muttered, “Better than a body in the bell tower.”
I jumped, startled. “Dude! Could you not?”
Mark grinned. “You’ve gotten jumpy lately.”
“Oh really? You think?”
In the week or so since our near-death experience, Mark had somehow gotten a bit thinner, even more chiseled. But his eyes were twinkling more often.
Oh wait. Were you thinking Mark was dead or something? Like this was his funeral? Geez, sorry about that. That must have been really stressful for you.
I mean, sure, I had to see him pass out from carbon monoxide poisoning, locked in a crazy bomb shelter, thinking he was de
ad for what felt like two hours till they finally cut us out of there with a blow torch and got him oxygen … and even then he didn’t wake up right away…
But still, you must have been very worried. I’m glad you’re okay.
I hope you’re weren’t also worried about Roger or Theodore…
“What’s up?” Mark said. “You guys going in?”
Ceci said, “Pete says the church is giving him the heebie-jeebies.”
“The heebie-jeebies?” Mark said. “Is that like a classic, old-timey candy?”
“Mark—”
“Do you have any in licorice? Mmm, Licorice Heebie-Jeebies…”
“Mark!”
His eyes went serious, although they somehow kept their twinkle. This was another recent new Mark feature. “Dude, I get it,” he said. “Trust me.”
I remembered the dark hints Mark had dropped about his childhood, all the reasons he could have had to never touch a church again.
Well … so what? Like our traumas should cancel each other out?
Ceci tried to break the tension. “So Mark,” she said, trying to be playful, “I’d have thought that this time around, you’d actually bring a plus-one. How often do you get a second chance at the same wedding?”
Mark shrugged. “Good point.”
The entrance door opened … to Gwen.
I gaped.
Had I ever even seen her in civilian clothes?
I mean, they weren’t quite civilian … her hair was bound tight, every hair under control. Her crisp dress was dark blue, almost black, and every line was taut as a uniform. Still, it was a dress … and were those earrings? Was that lipstick?
Ceci squealed. “Gwen! You look fabulous! Why didn’t you tell me?”
Gwen was clacking across the lobby, making a high-heel sound that I’d never dreamed I’d hear from her. When she reached us, she flicked Mark a curt glance. “Mr. Falcon’s invitation was somewhat last minute.”
“You’re still going to call him ‘Mr. Falcon’?” I said. “On a date?”
At the word date, both Gwen and Mark protested at once.
Mark said, “I promised to take her out to dinner as a thank-you. The whole ‘saving our lives’ thing.” He smirked. “I figured this is the best dinner I can afford.”
Gwen sighed. “Still broke, I see.”
“Not for long,” Mark said. “Vanessa did pay us, and now that Theodore is … indisposed … I finally contacted his boss directly. Looks like they’ll be happy to work with me after all.”
“I thought you hated websites,” Gwen said.
Mark shrugged. “I can deal for now. Until my police checks start rolling in.”
“If you’re going to procrastinate forever on your license, Mr. Falcon, don’t hold your breath.”
“What, you guys don’t have a line item for ‘Empathically Summon Investigator to Murder Scene Just in Time’?”
Yes, that’s what Mark had been doing with the whole wide-arms chanting thing. And I’d thought he was just blissing out.
Ceci looked at Gwen with wide, astonished eyes. “Really? Did you really … hear … Mark?”
Gwen squirmed. Had I ever seen Gwen squirm? Maybe the apocalypse was nigh.
“Mr. Falcon had already called me about Mrs. Turcot’s so-called confession. When we wrapped that highway accident earlier than I’d expected, I wound up driving past the turn for their house and I just had this … just a feeling I should drop by. That’s all.”
“But isn’t their house, like, a mile from the main road?” Ceci said.
Mark said, “Maybe imminent death amps the signal. And/or actually feeling good.”
I said, “Or maybe Mark and Gwen are getting a special connection.”
Now Mark and Gwen both squirmed. Was this junior high?
“It was probably the bunker,” Mark said quickly. “All that metal could have acted like a giant antenna.”
“And I haven’t felt anything like that since,” Gwen added.
“Well, no one’s tried to kill me,” Mark said. “Give it another week.”
Gwen looked alarmed.
I could see her point of view — the last thing she needed was a mind text from Mark whenever he was in dire peril.
The groom rushed past us into the church, primping his tux. I held the door for him, got a nod as he blew through, and then closed the door behind him.
Gwen eyed me. “Are we going in?”
Lights were coming on in the church. My stress spiked.
“What’s the verdict on Roger and Theodore?” I asked, stalling.
Gwen frowned, but she said, “The judge set a bail for Roger in the high five figures. Not that it matters much, while he’s still in intensive care. Apparently, he now has amnesia.”
“You’re kidding,” I said.
“It can happen with carbon monoxide,” she said. “It may be permanent.”
“That bastard,” I said. “He’s the last person who deserves amnesia.”
Mark twinkled. “I don’t know. Not if he still goes to jail.”
I imagined waking up to a life sentence for murders you couldn’t even remember. Ouch.
“Maybe,” I said. “Plus, doesn’t amnesia tank his little cult?”
Gwen said, “Last I heard, his wife is campaigning to raise funds to make bail. Signs all over their store. And that young woman, Yvette, she’s moved right back into that house.”
I shivered. Like, literally. What if I’d succumbed to those haunting eyes and hunger?
Mark said, “Roger’s probably a much more compelling guru when you don’t have to actually deal with him. Maybe that helps explain Mrs. Turcot’s fake confession. She would have been safe in jail, both a true martyr for the cause and with the real Roger out of her life for good.”
“I’ll tell you one thing,” Ceci said. “He won’t be getting any fan mail from Vanessa.”
I flinched. “How is she?” I said.
Ceci looked grim. “Alive.”
“Alive and disenchanted,” Gwen said. “For a follower of Roger Turcot, I’d say she’s ahead of the curve.”
“But why did Roger want her dead?” I said. “I can see why he’d goad Kelsey to kill himself — the guy was a time bomb, a confession waiting to explode. But why Vanessa? She was the whole point!”
“She was,” Mark said. “And that was the problem. Like Theodore said, Roger said more than he thought. Remember when Ed died? Vanessa wasn’t surprised.”
“Oh my gosh,” I said. I flashed back to that night, that feeling that she’d been almost … in awe. “You think he told her?”
“Not on purpose,” Mark said. “My guess is that he couldn’t resist a vague prophecy of Ed’s doom.”
“But it didn’t scare her away!” I said. “He was at her house that last day! I was there! She would have run screaming if she’d thought he’d planned her husband’s murder!”
“Probably,” Mark said. “But look at it from Roger’s perspective. This is a guy who built a secret apocalypse bunker in his basement, who felt the craving to start a cult in the first place. He had to be dealing with weapons-grade paranoia. All Vanessa had to do was hint that he knew more than he let on.”
“But she would have been admiring him,” I said. “His powers of ‘prophecy’.”
“Didn’t matter. She’d opened the loop in his terrified brain. Maybe she secretly knew. Maybe she’d figure it out. Maybe Kelsey had let something slip, and she’d piece it together and turn on him. Now that she was thinking along those lines, he could never be certain he was safe. She would always be a lethal threat. And jealous, suicidal Kelsey was his safest option to close that loop.”
Gwen muttered, “So many deaths.”
I thought of all the people Roger had infected unto death … Olivia, Ed, Roxanne, Kelsey. Kelsey made me think of Helga … I’d glimpsed her a couple times at the dwindling farmer’s market as I drove to work. She was grim and defiant, but her eyes had lost their organic stare. Now they were alway
s rimmed red from crying. Always.
At the lobby entrance, I saw Brett, back in his black trench coat, holding open the outside door for Samantha. They looked grim and wary … in fact, they were both wearing dark shades. For the first few steps, they walked side by side. Then Brett quietly took her hand.
When they saw Mark and me, they tensed up. Their linked hands tightened, and their jaws set.
“Hey,” Mark said, with a disarming smile. Like the two had been dating forever. “Cool, I didn’t realize you guys knew Jivanta.”
“We didn’t,” Samantha said cautiously. “She reached out … after…”
“Sure,” Mark said. “Very cool. See you at the reception.”
They relaxed a little, and Mark held the door for them to enter the church.
Gwen moved to follow them in, so I blurted, desperate, “What about Theodore?”
Gwen pointedly checked her watch, which had a surprisingly feminine thin gold band. But the bride wasn’t here yet, so she sighed and said, “From what you said, Theodore drank Roger’s Kool-Aid deepest of all. In his own way. We confirmed he’d purchased the carbon monoxide, so the judge set his bail even higher than Roger’s.”
“I mean, how is he?” I said. “Didn’t the gas make him start … seeing things? Hallucinating?”
“Shh!” Mark said.
Louise had just come in.
She was all dolled up, flushed and excited. Her face had serious cracks of exhaustion and pain beneath her makeup. But she was still here, still showing up for her sister’s wedding, no matter what.
Beside her, an old Indian woman in a sparkling sari was hauling Louise’s cute little daughter. Had to be the grandma. Louise was the kind of person who would never have to be alone.
She saw us, and froze. It was awkward, her husband having tried to kill us and all.
But Mark said, “Louise! You look great.” And he meant it.
Louise gave him a grateful smile. But she still wasn’t ready to start chatting it up (and honestly, neither was I). She scurried off with her mom, and we stood alone, a circle of silence in the lobby’s hubbub.
“Hey there!” the priest cried, so close that both me and Mark jumped. He slapped us both on our respective backs. “You all ready for Mr. and Mrs. Samson Take Two?”
