by C L Walker
“So what changed your mind?”
“You alright?”
“No, Mark. Or Merikh, or whatever. I’m not.” She paced as she spoke, burning off excess energy. “I’m constantly ready to kill someone, and I just found out the world is a really weird place. I’m stuck here because I’m too afraid I might punch someone if I go home or to work, and I can’t tell anyone because they’ll lock me up if they hear the story.”
“So, not great then?”
She sat heavily beside me. “Just peachy.”
“Look on the bright side: you know more about the world than anyone you grew up with. You know some of the big secrets now.”
“I really want to punch you right now.” Her arms were crossed but I could see them twitching. It was fight or flight and it was washing through her constantly.
“You can, if it’ll help. I should heal before I have to do anything important.”
“I’m tempted to jump you and do nasty things until the diner chick gets back.”
“That I’ll have to decline,” I said.
She looked at me with wild eyes. “Pity.”
Claire called and told me she knew I was back and she was on her way. Patty and I sat and talked for an hour, with me answering her questions as best I could – and being completely honest, which was novel for me – and asking her questions about how she was feeling.
My guess at what was going on inside her was simple. Whatever that yellow energy was, it was stimulating her amygdala and causing her to release adrenaline and noradrenaline constantly. It was keeping her at the edge of lashing out unconsciously, and it was getting worse. If I had to come up with a timeline for when it would get to the point where she could no longer control herself, I would have guessed a few hours.
Which I already knew, because that was when Claire said Foster was going to complete whatever he was planning.
By the time Claire arrived, Patty and I were done talking. She was pissed that I kept asking her questions, yet had no patience for my answers. She blanked when I told her about the thing possessing random motorists, not even caring when I said it could bring people back from the dead.
What I’m saying is, it was great when Claire walking in because at least that gave me someone to talk to who wasn’t crazy. Or, at least, was less crazy.
“I don’t know what that could have been,” she said when I finished telling her about my day. “It’s not one of us, anyway. We only get to choose when we die, and it sounds like this thing could hop around as much as it liked.”
“A ghost?” I tried.
“No such thing.” She looked at me like I’d suggested the Easter Bunny. “The bigger question is what could bring Mouse back from the nether.”
“I’m guessing that’s really difficult.”
“Any of us could, but it’s not easy. Some of the altered history remnants could, given ideal circumstances.”
“You’ll have to explain that.”
“Some other time. The sun is on its way to the horizon and we don’t have the hours it would take. What’s your plan?”
“Simple,” I said, my sigh giving away my actual thoughts. “I have to convince Littleton that their hyped up aggression isn’t something they want to give into. Assuming they calm down, I can move on to Foster, which is easy.”
She waited for my brilliant plan. Patty was barely paying attention to the conversation and even she looked intrigued.
“I lure him out of his house and shoot him from very far away.” It was Mouse’s plan, really, but it was the best I could do. If I had to face him again, I was sure it would go as well as every other time.
“You’ll need him in town,” Patty said. “Somewhere with buildings and a good line of sight.”
“You’ve done this before?” I said. I ignored the flash of irritation that crossed her face.
“I’ve played games. I know how it works.”
“Fair enough, and you’re right.” I turned to Claire, who was sitting at the kitchen counter. “Will he come if you call him?”
“Tonight? I’m not sure. He might.”
“Tell him you know what he’s doing and you can explain why it’ll fail. Tell him you can make it work.”
“You’ll kill him before he gets in the door?” She, like Foster, had no problems with saying the words kill, or murder. Patty winced at the sound but Claire was onboard.
“If I can’t get him with a rifle from two or three buildings away then I can’t get him.”
“Make sure you get him, then,” Claire said. “He’ll be more powerful than usual if Littleton goes through with their retribution, but I can’t see him surviving a bullet to the head. Even tonight.”
“He’s feeding on us,” Patty said. “Like a vampire.”
“And we’re going to stop him,” I replied.
It was late afternoon.
Chapter 17
I approached Littleton in a hatchback I took from the parking lot outside Slimy Joe’s. It was a long-stay lot, something he made money off of when business was slow. People could leave their cars there under his cameras, safe and secure while they went on vacation.
I’d disconnected the cameras shortly after we arrived and Joe hadn’t noticed. Taking the car was still a risk, given that if someone saw me they might decide to shoot me on sight, or hit me with their car, or something. Life in Midway was weird.
I parked the hatchback outside the shantytown entrance and got out. Two large men were waiting nearby with pistols in holsters on their belts. They didn’t look like the typical wannabe hippies I’d seen at the party. My guess was they were enforcers hired by whoever was supplying the little squatter village with drugs, but I couldn’t be sure. They just had that smell about them.
“Hi guys,” I said as I crossed the road and approached them. They didn’t draw their weapons, which was a good sign, but they didn’t look friendly, either. I decided to be extra friendly to compensate for them. “How about this weather, hey?”
The sun beat down on the county from an empty sky, punishing anyone who considered going outside. The guards didn’t seem to notice, or appreciate my attempt at chitchat.
“I’d like to see Galahad, if that’s cool.” I stopped far enough away that they wouldn’t feel threatened – though I was pretty sure these guys had never felt threatened in their lives – but close enough that I could react if they decided to draw on me.
“Don’t know who you’re talking about,” the one on the left said. He had an Eastern European accent of some kind, so I decided to call him Rusky.
“Tall guy,” I tried. “Kind of a thin guy, too, like he needs to start eating more. You know, wears colorful clothes and is the mayor around here.”
“No idea who you’re talking about,” the one on the right said. He had the same accent, which screwed my naming convention. I decided to call him Righty, though I could have done better if I’d had time.
“Let’s try this, then. I know you’re planning on doing something, shall we say, violent, tonight. I know you’re all pumped up and ready to roll. I’d like to speak to Galahad in the hopes that you don’t all get shot doing something stupid.”
“Yeah?” Rusky said, cocking his head to the side in a way I suspect he thought was threatening. He wasn’t far wrong. “Where’d you hear that?”
“Rumors, swirling around town. People are scared.”
“Maybe they should be,” Righty said without thinking. He looked away when Rusky glared at him.
“Look, you’ve got an issue with the cops. I get that. I’m not a big fan myself, but if you don’t let me talk to Galahad you’ll have a problem with me, as well, and that won’t end well for you.”
“Oh yeah?” Righty said. He stepped forward and his hand fell to the gun.
“Yeah,” I said as I raised my hands and showed them my Blackberry. “I’ve been recording this conversation, along with a GPS stamp of where I am, and I’m uploading it to the cloud. If anything happens to me the cops will know wh
ere I was and who did it.”
“So?” Rusky said, and he had a point. They were planning an attack, anyway.
“So the cops will roll in here long before you’re ready and they’ll shoot you. The message I’m sending includes everything about your plan and more. I said you’ve got explosives, and grenades, and an APC.”
“What?” Rusky said.
“APC. It’s a big armored thing used to carry guys with guns.”
“What?” Rusky said again. His hand had fallen to his gun, too, and he seemed like the kind of guy who might shoot me just because he was confused.
“They’ll call the army to deal with that. They’ll consider you terrorists and they’ll bring in helicopters and all kinds of stuff. They’ll flatten you before they find out I lied.”
“What if we kill you?” Righty said, though his voice lacked any conviction.
“He’s putting it in the cloud,” Rusky answered for me. It was clear Righty had no idea what that meant.
“So,” I said, taking a confident step toward them, and then another. “I’m just going to go speak to your boss, and you’re going to be good little goons and stay where you are. Alright?”
I didn’t wait for them to answer and I didn’t look back. I passed between them and walked into the town. My Blackberry is old and I don’t think it has GPS. I know it isn’t connected to any cloud services because then I’d be trackable. Assuming it can even do that. I don’t know. I’m not an IT guy, I just play one at work.
Littleton seemed divided into two camps now: the hippies and the revolutionaries. The hippies were hiding in their ramshackle homes and peeking out at me as I walked past, scared and trying to stay out of sight. The reactionaries stood their ground, and they had guns. Oh, so many guns. My suspicions about the enforcers being outsiders seemed dead on, assuming hippies didn’t regularly carry arsenals around with them.
Galahad was waiting for me outside the big house. He looked sober today, less the carefree druggy and more of a scared child just putting on his big boy pants. He wore jeans and an old, faded and worn army jacket, as though just getting into the right kind of clothes could make what he was planning work out.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” he said to me. More burly people who definitely weren’t residents of Littleton stood behind him and made aggressive faces at me.
“I’d like to talk you out of what you’re planning to do.” I put my hand up to shade my face from the relentless sunlight. “I was also hoping we could go inside so we don’t sweat to death out here.”
He did a quarter turn before realizing who was behind him, then turned back. “I’m afraid that isn’t going to be possible,” he said. “The guys at the gate said you had a recording. I’m going to need you to erase that.”
“I’ll tell you the truth, I was lying about that.” It was a calculated risk, but then, what about tonight wasn’t going to be a calculated risk? “I just wanted to come see you and talk this over.”
“Why do you care?” He was sweating heavily and he kept casting his eyes to the side, toward one of the nameless thugs in particular. I started to get an idea of the power dynamic here.
“Because I have a thing planned for tonight and I don’t want you to ruin it. Delay until tomorrow and I’ll be out of your hair. Hell, I’ll join you, and you know I’m pretty badass.”
Galahad turned to the head thug. “He is, you know. He’s a really good fighter and he…” He trailed off when he noticed neither of our speeches were having any effect. When he turned back to me he looked scared. “Sorry, not possible.”
I saw a bottle of ambrosia sticking out of the pocket of a fat guy with a rifle in his hands, and he had a huge knife strapped to his leg. It was the same small water bottle of yellow pus Deputy Anger Management had taken before trying to kill me.
“That stuff is bad for you. It drives you crazy and is addictive as hell. And the cops have a bunch of it, too.”
The nameless thug finally spoke. He didn’t have the Eastern European accent I’d been expecting, but sported one similar to mine, like it came from nowhere, or everywhere. “How do you know?”
“Because I saw Trevor Foster give it to them.”
“He’s selling to the police, as well?” the thug said, looking at Galahad like he wanted to smack him in the head.
“Not selling,” I said. “Giving, in big crates. He also promised them it was the best stuff, not the leftovers he sells to locals.”
“He’s lying,” Galahad said. His eyes were shifting rapidly between the thug and me. “We’ve got what we need.”
“You lying to me?” the thug said, lifting his gaze from the mayor’s shoulders and settling it on me. I’ll admit that he was pretty intimidating, but I think I hid it well.
“Why would I? It looks like you guys aren’t going to listen to me anyway, in which case you’ll storm out of here and run into the truth immediately. Then I’ll have to deal with the few of you who remain, and that’s kind of a hassle.”
“You should leave,” the thug said. They weren’t buying it, which was unfortunate, but at least they hadn’t just shot me for talking. There’s a bright side to everything if you look hard enough.
“Alright, if you insist.” I backed away a few steps. “Listen, just let me try one more time. Go crazy tomorrow, spend tonight getting high. That’s not too much to ask, is it? Just give me some time to do what I need to do.”
The thug stepped forward, a giant knife coming from somewhere. Galahad stepped between us even as I raised my hands in preparation.
“There’s no need for that,” the mayor of Littleton said quickly. He was face to face with the thug and scared, but he managed to hold his ground. He turned his head to me. “We’re not doing anything tonight, man.”
“So why are you being such dicks about it?” I could read Galahad pretty well and he seemed to be telling the truth.
“Get out of here,” the head thug said again.
Galahad added, “Just go, please.”
“As you wish.” I turned and made for the road, listening intently to the noises behind me in case Galahad lost the battle of wills with the large, angry man.
Nobody got in my way or bothered me as I passed through the town. I kept my eyes averted from the guards at the entrance, anyway, just in case. I got into the hatchback and cranked the AC up as high as it would go.
One of the entrance guards approached me, and I could tell from one look at his impassive face that it wasn’t him wanting to speak to me. I hit the button to roll down the window and let the hot air in.
“What you are planning will not work,” the creature hiding in the guard’s skin said.
“Really, why’s that?”
“You must enter his lair and destroy him when the moment is right. Otherwise he will win, whether you kill him or not.”
“Let’s make a deal. You tell me exactly what has you so spooked and maybe I’ll listen to you. Otherwise, stay out of it.”
“You’ve been warned, assassin.”
“That’s what I thought.” I hit the button to roll the window up and put my foot on the gas. I left the guard behind in a cloud of dust and gravel, though I suspected the being inside had already gone.
I decided to ignore it, at least for now. There was nothing I could do about its prediction anyway, and I was pretty sure a bullet to the head would do the trick with Foster. Besides, I didn’t know what other plans the thing might have, and I wasn’t going to dance for it just because it had an impressive knack for possessing people.
The other problem was that I might have convinced the heavies in Littleton to do something violent when the sun went down by trying to get them to not do something violent when the sun went down.
This sort of thing was why I needed Mouse. She would have picked up on it somehow and stopped me from pushing things.
Well, if everything went according to plan I’d have her back soon. I wasn’t sure I actually believed it yet, but it was comforting to allow
the idea space in my head.
I turned onto the main road and headed for Littleton.
Chapter 18
A block down the street from the bank there was an older building in need of repair. It had been many things over the years, from an ambitious and oversized bakery to a day care. Now it was the squash and racquet club that was always empty.
It had a great line of sight to the diner and easy access to its roof. I picked my spot and settled down behind the low wall that ran around the roof. I had Mouse’s small laptop open and waiting.
Sniping is both easier and more difficult than they make it look in the movies. You’ve got to worry about the wind and elevation, and the weight of the bullet you’re using. You’ve got to lead your target and make sure you’re not going to hit anyone behind them.
You’re supposed to worry about things like barometric pressure and humidity, as well. I would have done so if I hadn’t been practically sitting in my target’s lap for the shot. Those factors might slow the bullet down, given some distance, but it wasn’t a variable in my math.
I could do a lot of that math in my head, though it wasn’t instinctive despite all the training I’d done. I was never able to burn it into my brain the way some of the others were; luckily I was pretty good up close, so it balanced out.
My biggest concern was being spotted. I could keep myself hidden until I took the shot but, at that range, they were going to know where I was immediately. My exit from the building was going to be problematic, but I had something worked out.
The sun kissed the horizon as my Blackberry vibrated against my leg.
“Is he coming?” I said.
“He says he’ll be here when he gets here,” Claire replied. “Which means he’s on his way and he’s annoyed.” She was breathing heavily, but whether she was excited or scared, I couldn’t tell. “Don’t miss.”
“I could cut his hair from this distance,” I said.
