Dead Lines

by Greg Bear

  “You’d freak,” Lindsey said. At this, Helen’s eyes popped and she shoved Lindsey inside and slammed the door.

  Peter heard them shouting, but it was a thick, burglar-proof door, and he could not make out what was being said. Part of him miserably wanted to walk away, but he stuck his hands firmly in his pants pockets and leaned against the stucco wall.

  The shouting inside went on for almost five minutes. He glanced at his watch just as the door opened again. Helen unlatched the screen and let it slide into its roller.

  “I am in charge in my own house,” she insisted, stepping out and closing the door to a crack behind her. She was subdued, on the edge of tears. “It’s the last thing I have. God help me if I lose that, right?” She regarded Peter plaintively, asking for help in the only way she knew how—without asking. Helen had had so much kicked out of her in the last two years; the starch was almost gone, leaving only wrinkles and weariness. He did not know what more to say. He could not reassure when there was no assurance left in him. But he had to try.

  Peter straightened. “It’s just some stuff we need to hash out, father-daughter. I need to catch up. You know that.”

  “I know that, all right,” Helen said.

  “Nothing for you to worry about,” Peter added, smiling. The way Helen searched his smile, if there was anything left in it, in him, for her, was painful. “When it’s all over, I’ll explain.”

  Fat chance I’ll even know how to start.

  Lindsey’s arm poked out through the door and gestured for him to come in.

  “Promise?” Helen asked. She sounded younger than Lindsey.

  “Promise,” Peter said.

  Helen went back into the house. When she returned, she was clutching her purse and a light sweater was half wrapped around her shoulders. “I’ll be back in ten minutes,” she said, abruptly shoving past Peter. “Is it raining?” she asked, her face bitter and resigned all at once.

  “It’s stopped,” Peter said. “Thanks.”

  “You two deserve each other,” Helen said. “Lock the door. Ten minutes.”

  “Twenty!” Lindsey called out.

  Peter joined Lindsey in the living room. Lindsey offered him a glass of water. “Mom drinks bottled water. I don’t mind tap water. Do you?”

  “It’s okay,” Peter said.

  “Mom doesn’t allow soft drinks or alcohol.”

  “I don’t drink now anyway,” Peter said.

  “Right,” Lindsey said, as if she would reserve judgment on that. “Mom’s pretty strung out with this boyfriend stuff.”

  Peter sat on the couch. With some guilt, he saw that the stuffing was poking from a corner of the armrest; guilt because he could not buy them new furniture. But that was stupid. Helen had never asked. The possible cause of the damage, a young orange cat, sauntered into the living room, stretched out its many-toed feet, and sat on its haunches, appraising him.

  “That’s Bolliver,” she said. “Mom calls him Bolliver Sling-shit. We have to watch where we step in the bathroom. His litter box is in there. He’s messy.” She stood in front of him and took a deep breath. “How did you and Mom meet?”

  Peter looked up from the couch.

  “I mean, you’re so different.”

  “She was working on a construction crew,” Peter said. “We just hit it off. A year later, we were married.”

  Helen, unrecognizable now, from this distance, had stood in the sun beside the freeway, wearing a yellow helmet, a ponytail thrusting stubbornly from the back, her professional smile brooking no nonsense from passing drivers; stern brown eyes, dark red hair very curly indeed, muscles instead of fat, nicely shaped, but more utilitarian and healthy than voluptuous. He had driven past, SLOW, as specified by her extended orange sign, rolled down the window of the Porsche, and asked her out for lunch at a nearby Hamburger Hamlet.

  “You and construction,” Lindsey said. “Did you ask her to model?”

  “No way,” Peter said. “She would have hit me.”

  “That explains a lot. Yeah.” Lindsey’s expression told Peter that the time had finally come, and could not be put off. She sat beside him. “This isn’t exactly new, you know. What’s going on.”

  “You’ve seen Daniella.”

  “Mm-hmm. I felt her over a year ago. I’ve just never seen her until now.”

  “Felt her, how?”

  “At the house in Glendale, when I visited. She didn’t, like, show herself or anything; I just knew. I didn’t tell anybody because Mom would have called in a psychiatrist. I didn’t need that. I still don’t.” She had assumed an explanatory, grown-up voice, but Peter saw her hands were trembling.

  “And now?”

  Lindsey leaned her head back, staring at the ancient popcorn-textured ceiling. “She appeared to me three nights ago, in my room. I had a night-light on. It was late. She was just there. There was something else, too, but I couldn’t see it. She didn’t scare me, at first.”

  “At first?”

  “Why not tell me what you know?” Lindsey asked. “Because if I’m going to be crazy, you have to be crazy, too, okay? It’s only fair.”

  “I’ve seen Daniella,” Peter confessed. “And other things.”

  “All right,” she said. “My throat is really dry. How about yours?”

  Peter toasted her and they both took a long swallow of water.

  “We have a little group at school, pretty tight, we talk about this stuff. Other people seeing things. And there’s this Web site that started yesterday, kids writing about it.”

  Peter showed his astonishment. “A Web site?”

  “Yup. A lot of kids talk about the new phones, like the one you gave Mom. But Mom hasn’t used hers. She says it doesn’t feel right. I tried it. It’s really quiet. I didn’t like it, either.”

  “Your mother hasn’t seen Daniella?”

  “She sees what she wants to see. She sleeps with eye patches on and stuff all over her face. I think she takes pills. We’re not having it real easy here.” She fixed Peter with a limpid, what’s-a-woman-to-do look.

  “Have you talked with your sister?” Peter asked.

  “First, she’s not my sister, not anymore,” Lindsey said with a fragile defiance. “She’s dead. She’s something else.” Lindsey looked up over his shoulder, at the front door. “Let’s start at the beginning, okay? You first. But hurry. Mom will come back soon. She doesn’t trust either of us. She thinks we’ll talk about her boyfriends.”

  “You could be more understanding,” Peter suggested.

  “Just tell me, please.”

  Peter described what he had seen at the house, leaving out his attempt to hug Daniella. He asked, “You haven’t touched her, have you?”

  “No way,” Lindsey said. “She looked like a Visible Woman. I could see her bones, Dad.”

  Peter stared at his daughter. “You didn’t feel sympathy?”

  “Well, yeah, of course,” Lindsey said. “I wouldn’t want to be where she is, if that’s what you mean.”

  “No,” Peter said. “That isn’t what I mean.” Her toughness was beginning to be irritating. He had hoped for a little help resolving this problem.

  “We love flesh,” Lindsey said defiantly. “You said that.”

  “I did?”

  “Or Mom said you did. And the flesh is gone, right? She’s nothing but ashes now.”

  Peter shook his head. “She needs something. She’s coming to us for some reason.”

  “Isn’t that what ghosts do? Kind of like homeless people by the freeway? You let her touch you, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  Her eyes went wide. “Wow. What did that feel like?”

  “I blacked out.” Peter wiped his forehead. “What did she say to you?”

  Lindsey drew herself up. “She used this really tinny voice, like it was coming from a cheap boom box turned down low. She said—I think she said—’It’s been too long.’ She said it a couple of times, like an echo and creepy. I thought I saw so
mething in a corner but it wasn’t her. It was something that was, like, waiting. I might have screamed, because Mom opened the door and turned on the light, and they were gone.”

  Peter folded his hands around his face. “You didn’t tell your mother.”

  “Like I said, she’d freak. You’re not going to tell her, are you?”

  Peter shook his head. “I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

  “When you die, you’re supposed to go away and leave people alone, and it’s all sad and, like, sad, and the rest of us live until it’s our turn. Right?”

  Peter remembered his own adolescence. An appearance of toughness was sometimes the only armor you had. Still, Lindsey’s brisk aloofness irritated him. “She was your sister and my daughter,” he said, but cut his words off before he could add, You shared a womb with her for nine months. “I don’t know what she is now. Still, I care what happens to her.”

  “What if she kills us?” Lindsey asked, eyes burning. “She was in my room, it’s my room, and she just zapped me. I didn’t touch her, but she still sucked up my energy. I pushed back into my bed and just went, ’Go away!’ What if ghosts really are vampires?”

  “I don’t think that’s what happens.”

  The front door opened and Helen came in hoisting a bag of groceries. Her face was still pale but she appeared resigned to the interruption of her routine. Again, Peter felt a sudden and sharp sympathy.

  “I took the opportunity to do some shopping,” she said. “I bought Dulce de Leche. Häagen Dazs. Is that all right?”

  “I’m going to bed now,” Lindsey said, jumping up from the couch and doing a short spin to the hall. “Dad and I had our talk. It went okay, so don’t worry.” She looked over her shoulder at Peter. “You’re going to quit working for that phone company now, aren’t you?”

  “I WON’T ASK what you talked about,” Helen said primly after Lindsey closed her bedroom door. “I’m sorry I was cross. She’s just acting strange lately—and so are you.”

  “You haven’t seen anything odd?” Peter asked, following her into the small kitchen.

  “If you mean ghosts, no,” she answered curtly.

  Confused, Peter said, “Lindsey told me you hadn’t talked.”

  Helen squinted. “I deposited your check,” she said. “Bank manager gave me some guff, but I kowtowed. It’s a lot of money, Peter. I hope the job is going well. I’ll get the cash out for you next week.” She reached into a kitchen drawer and took out an ice-cream scooper. She then reached to the back of the drawer and removed the Trans. “Lindsey asked me to return this. I guess it works, but I haven’t used it.”

  Peter pocketed the unit, feeling like he had come into the middle of a movie and missed most of the important dialog.

  “One scoop or two?”

  “Two,” he said. His hands trembled and he hid them from her view.

  “I’m just feeling an urge to help some man or other be contented for at least a couple of minutes. Is that too much to ask? To make somebody care, be happy, just a little?”

  “Not at all,” Peter said.

  “I wish I could still communicate with Lindsey,” she said with brittle caution. “We used to have such an open relationship.” She folded two scoops of ice cream into a small bowl, stuck a spoon upright, and handed the bowl to him. “Typical, right? I was the same way with my mom.”

  “She’s okay,” Peter said. “She’s tough. Just like you.”

  “She acts tough, but she’s just twelve years old,” Helen said. “I worry.”

  They walked into the living room. Helen was working to appear cheerful. She swallowed a bite of ice cream and said, “Um. I just have this feeling there’s a conspiracy going on, and I’m being left out.”

  “No conspiracy,” Peter said. “We needed to clear the air before the picnic. About how I haven’t knocked down the door to see her.” He did not know whom he was protecting now.

  “Yeah, well, guilty me, woe is you. The picnic is on for this Saturday. I assume you’ll be there?”

  “I’ll do my damnedest,” Peter said.

  “No more baby-sitting overnights, not for now. I have no love life.” Helen spooned up a larger bite. “My boyfriend—in case you’re wondering why I talk about ghosts—is a complete loon. His excuse for ditching me was, he saw his wife walking in the backyard of his house. She’s been dead for six years. I really pick ’em, don’t I?”

  CHAPTER 38

  PETER SAT IN the booth at the Denny’s, watching people come and go, asking them silently, And what have you been seeing lately? Two weeks ago, he had been a plumpish bachelor living a skinny existence, a long gray quiet following on a raucous youth, waiting for circumstances to go his way. They had, in a rush; too many circumstances. He swarmed with circumstances.

  He stared at the booth across from him, half expecting some elderly lady to congratulate him on his pretty young daughter, and how radiant she looked in this light. She positively glows.

  But the booth was empty. The restaurant was doing brisk business, solid bodies going to and fro, hither and yon, too many to allow the slow accumulation of Visible Women and Visible Men, like crystal shells full of the departed spirits of bones and organs.

  And if he looked at the floor long enough . . .

  He closed his eyes. Just warmly lit darkness, no footsteps through the accumulated ages of dust and skin flakes. But perhaps they swept this Denny’s clean in more ways than one, every night.

  If the world was changed forever, no going back, would they hire janitors to clean up after the ghosts? Offer new items on the menu—restoratives, collations, remembrances, plates of wine or of blood?

  It was nearly midnight when he finished his fifth cup of coffee. He was wide-awake, determined. A good time, perhaps, to get out to Salammbo and ask Joseph some important questions. They might still be awake.

  Sleep no more.

  He thought of Helen with eye patches and skin cream, full of pills and oblivious—and tried to connect that image to the first time he had seen her, jaunty, strong, and smiling, sporting a Day-Glo orange vest and patched jeans under the never-ending sun on Pacific Coast Highway.

  Friction of life.

  He might never sleep again.

  He was back in the Porsche when he heard a Trans chime. He pulled out the unit Helen had given him, but it was quiet. He looked around, peered into the backseat, trying to locate the sound.

  It was coming from the front.

  Peter popped the hood and got out of the car. Nestled in the front storage well, below the gas tank, three Trans units gleamed gold, black, and white under a wedge of streetlight glare. Peter could not imagine how the units had gotten into his trunk. He had not put them there. Senses tuned by shock, he found the chiming unit. He opened it but did not say his name.

  Heard a sharp intake of breath—masculine breath—on the other end.

  “Peter, is that you? Who’s there?”

  It was Hank.

  “This is Peter,” he said with frightened formality.

  “Thank Christ. What time is it? Shit, I don’t care, I’m sorry. I’m still in Prague. Everybody else is locked in their rooms or gone. The hotel staff ran out last night.”

  Peter’s mind buzzed. Someone had come to his house and moved the Trans units into the Porsche. But when? And why? “It’s after midnight. What time is it there, Hank?”

  “It’s morning. Late, I guess. I wish I was alone, Peter. She’s still here. She’s been here all night. She’s making me sick. You won’t believe this.”

  “Try me,” Peter said.

  “They’ve ruined the shoot. They’re everywhere. The whole crew is hiding or trying to get out of Prague. Jack Bishop hung himself yesterday, right outside the hotel, from a lamppost. He just climbed up with a rope and dropped. I saw what was after him, Peter. Like a long cloud of soot. He had these shadows clinging to his back and his head like leeches.”

  “This isn’t my Trans,” Peter said, still trying to think things th
rough. “How did you get my number?”

  “Jesus, Peter, we traded all the numbers. I just kept dialing until you answered.”

  “What’s your visitor doing?” Peter asked.

  “She’s standing by the door and she won’t move. She looks so old. I mean, she might have been young once, but now she’s just frayed, like an old sock, and . . . Christ, the room is full of shadows, the corners, the ceiling, the closet.”

  “Is she a ghost, Hank?”

  Prague, city of ghosts. Possibly the worst place on the planet to have a Trans.

  “Fuck, yeah, she’s a ghost! Haven’t you been listening? Oh, shit, now there’s another one.” His voice, already high, rose a notch in pitch. “God, God, God—this one is worse. I can’t even see a face, just wrinkles—”

  “Listen to me, Hank. Shut the Trans and smash it. Break it all to hell. Then go out a window or push through . . . to the door, whatever it takes. Just get out of there.”

  “Are you joking? Go through them?”

  “Just do it,” Peter said. “Get on the next airplane. Go to Africa or someplace far away. I have to go now.”

  “Peter, for the love of God—”

  No more debating, no more arguments. He shut the Trans. His hand tingled and he shook it out, dropping the unit to the curb. It bounced.

  Sleep no more.

  Years ago, when he had taken a vacation with Helen and the girls, he had left a key to the Glendale house with Joseph and Michelle. He had never retrieved it.

  One more reason to go out to Salammbo.

  He removed the units from the Porsche and dropped them into the street. Something dark had stained the bottom of the trunk. Again, his hand tingled and this time the sensation was painful. He added Helen’s Trans, and, one by one, stomped them beneath his feet. It took some effort. Peter danced on them, grunting and flinging out his arms. As the cases finally cracked, like the tough shells of big insects, a pale blue fluid seeped into the gutter.

  His hand still tingled.

  People leaving the Denny’s stared at him in pity.