Mike walked in at some point and asked Ted to come outside with him. He was with Espósito, the pudgy inmate who said he could see animals and hardly ever talked. Ted asked no questions. The others tried to join the group, but Mike stopped them, first with a threatening glare and then with a direct warning not to even think of going outside. It surprised Ted to see how much terror the man could elicit when he showed his implacable, authoritarian side. Sketch, Lolo, and Lester silently nodded and returned to the chess table. Ted got his coat from one of the hooks and went out with Mike. Espósito followed them like a giant balloon bobbing along at ground level.
Other than the three of them, only two patients were roaming the yard. Mike called to them and they came over; he told them to go inside, and they obeyed without a word. Mike looked toward the building to make sure nobody was watching them at the windows. It wasn’t that they were going to do anything suspect, he explained to Ted, but he still didn’t want a whole gang of spectators glued to the glass. They headed for his usual bench, and Ted assumed they would sit there, as they’d done so many times before. He knew that this operation had something to do with the possum, but he had no idea what exactly they’d do or why the hell they had Espósito with them. As for Espósito, he was taking baby steps, letting his voluminous belly wag to and fro, and constantly throwing fearful glances at Mike. When they reached the bench, Mike asked Ted to grab one end because they were going to move it.
“Quick,” Mike said as they lifted it. “Somebody might see what we’re doing—not one of our people; maybe somebody from higher up—and then they’ll tell a guard, if none of the guards are watching us already, that is. Just follow me and don’t stop.”
Ted and Mike crossed the yard, heading toward the basketball court. Espósito followed them. Indeed, when they were almost up to the circle in the center of the court, the main door opened and a guard and a nurse came out, waving their arms and yelling.
“Hey! What do you guys think you’re doing?”
“Keep moving,” Mike said. Just a couple of yards to go…“Good. Drop it here and sit down. You too, Espósito.”
All three sat: Mike and Ted on the ends, Espósito in the middle. They had their backs to the building, so they couldn’t see the approaching pair until they walked around the bench and stopped in front of it. The nurse was McManus.
“What the fuck are you guys up to?” said the guard.
It was a surreal scene. The three men on the bench remained expressionless, their hands in their pockets and their eyes avoiding McManus and the guard, as if sitting in the center of a basketball court were the most normal thing in the world.
“Well?”
Mike raised a hand to signal peace: It’s okay, I’ll explain. He pointed toward the tree by the bench’s former location and slowly shook his head.
“It’s terrible over there,” he said with consternation. “The wind shakes the tree branches, and it’s like it’s raining on you. Terrible! Right, guys?”
“Bullshit, Dawson!” the guard said. “I was watching you. You didn’t even try sitting.”
Mike smiled and nodded: You got me! He signaled peace again and tried coming up with another excuse. He bent forward slightly and cupped his hand around his mouth: Here’s a secret for you.
“These two guys aren’t right in the head,” he said, touching his own. “I don’t know what they were thinking.”
“Jesus, Dawson. Come off it. You know you can’t go around moving shit wherever you want. Put the bench back where it goes. Right now.”
“Listen, Myers, the bench is here already,” Mike said. Again there was something menacing in his tone. “We’ll sit here for a little while. You know how we people get…”
The guard shook his head. McManus spoke for the first time.
“Whatever. I’m going inside.” She sounded annoyed.
Myers sighed.
“This better be the last time, Dawson. You know that when you do anything, next thing you know everybody’s copying you. I don’t want an army of crazy guys moving shit all over.”
“Got it, boss. Now if you don’t mind, we’d like to bask in the sunlight while it lasts. Who brought the suntan lotion, guys?”
The guard gave up and left. Mike dropped the jokey tone and turned to Ted.
“I hope this is worth it, buddy.”
The line dividing the court lay only inches from Ted’s feet.
The border between the real world and the world of madness, Mike had said.
“What are we doing here, Mike?”
“You wanted to see it, didn’t you?”
Espósito obviously knew what they were talking about, because he shook, ill at ease, slamming lightly into both of his companions.
“Sit still, Espósito.”
“Yeah, I do want to see it,” Ted said. “But…”
“Here’s the line.” Mike pointed at the white line. It was almost invisible under the puddled water. “We’re more likely to see it if we’re by the line. Shit, I forgot my book!”
Ted sat and cringed, unable to say more. For a second he saw it all quite clearly, saw the real Mike—not the menacing man who at times seemed the most rational person in the world, with his books and his off-the-wall theories, but the raving mad inmate with the lifetime membership at Lavender Memorial. Ted looked around and realized how absurd it all was.
“You gotta believe,” Espósito suddenly said. It was the first time Ted had heard his voice.
“Shut up, Espósito,” Mike ordered.
And they were supposed to see the possum, just like that? Stupidly, Ted found himself peering at the back of the yard, where the trees and the benches were, looking for the nasty animal. He saw nothing.
“Mike, I’m sorry,” Ted said, “but we’ve been here a million times before, even here by the line, and I’ve never seen anything. What makes you think this time will be different?”
“This big guy we have with us, right here,” Mike said, patting Espósito on the back. “Didn’t I tell you he’s always seeing them? Espósito is like a floodlight, except he doesn’t attract insects. Right, Espósito?”
“Been a l-l-long time since I saw one.”
Mike laughed out loud.
“That lie’s as big as your ass. Anyway, all three of us have seen them. The more of us, the better.” Mike bent forward to see Ted and give him one of his withering looks. “Hey. You want to see it or not? ’Cause I’m doing all this for you.”
Ted nodded.
“You’re right. Sorry.”
What the hell? What did he have to lose? If sitting in the middle of a basketball court with a couple of nutcases might help him discover the truth, why not give it a try?
“I’m ready,” Ted said with conviction. “Come on, Espósito. Use your Aquaman powers and call them. Tell them to get here.”
“That’s not how it works,” Espósito replied in his high-pitched voice.
Nobody asked him how it did work.
They waited in silence. The scene must have seemed more outlandish from the building. Three men sitting on a bench, with their backs to the hospital, in the center of the basketball court. It could have been a poster for a buddy flick. Three Men and a Possum, coming soon to this screen.
Twenty minutes later they were sitting in the same positions, not having said a word. Suddenly Ted smiled. He hadn’t seen the possum, but he was thinking about his daughters. They sometimes played Whoever Talks First Loses, almost always at the urging of Nadine, who, tired of her sister’s constant suggestions and ramblings, would challenge her to try to hold her tongue longer than she could. Ted wondered which of the three of them would be the first to speak. Not Espósito, who played Whoever Talks First Loses every minute of his life, while Dawson seemed to have sunk into some unfathomable reverie. Only Ted seemed unable to stop thinking about what they were doing. The stupid thing they’re doing.
He was starting to get cold despite his thick coat. He settled back on the bench and in doing so felt t
he weight of the horseshoe in his pocket. That was it! At that moment he saw it clearly. The possum would never come near if he had the horseshoe with him. He jumped up and pulled the horseshoe from his pocket for his companions to see. He didn’t say anything, but they seemed to understand. He thought of throwing it as far as he could, but he didn’t want McManus and the other guy to come back and stir up trouble, so he merely walked to the edge of the court and left it there.
“Cover it up,” he heard Espósito say.
“What the hell am I supposed to cover it with?” Ted said as he walked back.
“With your coat,” Mike broke in. “Cover it.”
Ted sighed. Wonderful. Now he’d be catching a cold. But still, he had to admit that covering up the horseshoe seemed, for some crazy reason, like the most rational thing in the world. He took off his coat and laid it over the horseshoe. This time he made sure nobody was watching from the windows. He rushed back to the bench, rubbing his hands together.
“Move over, Espósito. Let me sit in the middle.”
The big guy slid over with no objection. “They’re coming,” he said at almost the same moment. There was no hesitation in his voice.
Ted paid close attention to everything around him. He didn’t feel anything odd. But wasn’t he also noticing that something was starting to change? And then he saw it. In one of the puddles just past the dividing line, a reflection of something moving caught his eye. Something red.
“Red is my favorite color,” Espósito announced out of nowhere. His voice now sounded not only stronger but deeper than normal.
“What?” Ted asked.
Espósito didn’t answer.
Again that reflection, unmistakable now. Holly’s slender body in the red bikini appeared in the puddle, trembled when a gust of wind rippled the surface, and disappeared. But it had been there—Ted was sure of it. When he raised his head, he froze.
On one corner of the court stood the Disney princess castle. Not a reflection or a translucent apparition. The castle itself. Ted pointed at it.
“We can see it,” Mike announced.
“It’s my daughters’ castle,” Ted said in a quavering voice.
He stood up and walked toward it, alone. Halfway there he turned, saw Mike with a worried look on his face and Espósito trying to shrink his enormous body, sinking his head below his shoulders. They looked as though they were riding the most terrifying roller coaster on earth. Yet Ted felt an urge, almost a need, to return and sit with them in the safety of the bench.
Beyond them, he saw McManus’s silhouette through the glass door in the Lavender building. There was no way McManus could fail to see the castle. Ted resumed walking.
The castle was set on the border between the basketball court and the trees. When he reached it, he knelt down to look through one of the side windows. He had no intention of going inside; it didn’t even seem like a good idea to touch it. For some reason he was convinced he’d see the possum in there, but he didn’t. The castle was completely empty. He walked away, scratching his head. Snow White, Cinderella, Ariel, and Pocahontas were looking at him from one of the sidewalls. What will you do now? He walked around the castle. On the front wall he saw Esmeralda and, next to her, Sleeping Beauty; Ted couldn’t remember her real name. Then an image hit him. He saw himself walking hand in hand with Cindy around this same castle at a Toys “R” Us, the little girl telling him each princess’s story.
Aurora!
Cindy’s voice gave him the answer. Sleeping Beauty’s name was Aurora. He felt a shiver. This was the first memory he had stolen from Wendell. He continued to walk around the castle.
“That one is Belle,” Cindy said.
“From Beauty and the Beast,” Ted noted.
“Of course. And that is Pocahontas, and this is Mulan.”
There were no princesses around back—just a wall of bricks painted on the plywood. Ted stared at the wall. He took a few steps back, meaning only to get some perspective, when his right foot stepped on something hard. The possum! He jumped involuntarily and moved aside. But it wasn’t the possum: it was a butcher knife.
“It isn’t at Lavender, Daddy. It’s just like the castle.”
Ted bent down and picked up the knife. When he touched it, he noticed a red stain on the handle.
Red is my favorite color.
What was this knife doing here? He looked at Mike and Espósito, as if they might be able to give him an answer from afar. Not only did they not answer him: they seemed frozen in the same pose as before. Ted thought of waving at them, trying to get them to wave back, but he didn’t bother. He knew they wouldn’t. Besides, at that instant he heard the grass rustling a few yards from where he stood, and this time he knew it was the possum, shuffling away with its rambling gait. It didn’t seem interested in Ted. It didn’t seem interested in anything, sniffing here and there, raising its head from time to time. Ted followed it, not entirely conscious that he was still grasping the knife like some sort of poacher.
He entered the Lavender woods, which he didn’t recognize at all, and within minutes he lost all visual contact with his friends. He was walking down a tree-lined dirt path. The possum was leading the way, guiding him.
At the edge of a clearing, the possum moved aside and watched him with as near to a grin as the demonic creature could muster. Its tail snaked behind its stocky body. When Ted had walked on a few yards, he understood why it smiled. In the clearing lay a dead body. Ted knew it was dead. It was lying facedown, arms splayed, and wearing a Massachusetts State University varsity hoodie and an MSU baseball cap. Ted recognized the outfit immediately: he had worn the same hoodie and cap a million times, like all his friends at the university. He couldn’t see the victim’s face, and frankly, he didn’t want to see it.
Then he remembered the knife in his hand, and he instinctively looked more closely at the body. He had a partial view of a slash across the neck. Blood stained the grass and darkened the soil.
Who are you?
He began to walk around the body.
He had to move it. Look at the face.
“Ted,” said a voice behind him.
He turned.
It was McManus. Behind her stood Mike and Espósito. All three looked worried. Ted turned back to verify what he already knew to be true: there was no dead Mass State student lying in the woods, much less a grinning possum. He put up his hands in a show of surrender. Where had the knife he had found gone?
They started walking back in silence.
“Did you see the possum?” Mike asked.
Ted gave the slightest nod.
“But I’m not too sure I saw what’s behind the backdrop, Mike. To be honest, I have no idea what it was I saw.”
The image of the dead student was still etched in his mind. Who was it?
55
They had already spent half an hour in the assessment room at Lavender Memorial. Laura cursorily described her visit to see Nina, Lynch’s secretary. But for the time being she withheld the young woman’s final revelation.
“The police never interrogated her, but she was there with you, Ted, before you went into Lynch’s office.”
Ted’s mind was elsewhere. His family’s visit and his weird experience in the hospital yard had disturbed him.
“Does any of this matter?”
“I haven’t gotten to the end of the story yet. But first let me say that, yes, it does matter, because it proves that every event in the first cycle is based on some real incident. That can help us reconstruct your final days.”
“If that’s true, why would I visit a guy like Blaine?”
“That is exactly what I wanted to ask you. When Nina was leaving Lynch’s office, she heard you complain that he had followed you to Blaine’s place.”
This last statement grabbed Ted’s attention. He slowly repeated it.
“I don’t get what connection I could possibly have to that guy.”
“But now we positively know that you and he knew ea
ch other. Most likely it was a link no one else knew about, not even Holly. When you found out Lynch had followed you there, you became furious with him.”
Laura had an enigmatic look. Every now and then she threw an especially keen glance at him, or so it seemed to Ted.
“Just a second, Laura. What do you mean by ‘a link’?”
“Nothing in particular. Let’s not get hasty. But I think it’s important to find out what it was. Ted, is something wrong?”
He looked down.
“Yes, actually, there is. I have to ask you for a favor. Ever since I saw the girls…”
“Yes?”
Ted seemed broken. Thinking about Cindy and Nadine reminded him of the promise he had made to them before they left.
“Ted, you can tell me anything. I want you to talk to me about what you felt when you saw Holly and the girls. That is something we should deal with here, too.”
He said it flat out: “I need to get out, Laura. For a day or two. I need to go to the lake house, see my stuff, be in my own place. I can’t connect with a reality that I can’t recall. Being here has helped me, don’t get me wrong, but I feel it’s time for me to get back to the place where it all started.”
“Ted, I don’t know if this is the right moment. We’re making significant progress.”
“I know, and I’m really grateful to you. I was able to see my girls, and I owe that to you. But I have to keep recovering my memories, and there are answers at that lake house. I’m sure of it.”
“What makes you think that?”
He knew that if he wanted to convince her, he would have no choice but to tell her what he’d seen in the hospital yard.
“I had a very weird dream. It was…a vision, something like that. The first thing I remember is the girls’ pink castle. I was walking over to look at it, inspecting it closely, until I discovered a path behind it. My daughter Cindy was with me, I think. Then she left. I followed the path behind the lake house for I don’t know how long. But the main thing is how I felt while I was walking. Like I knew for sure that I would find a revelation at the end. The key to everything.”
Kill the Next One Page 23
