by J. S. Bailey
Be strong, the Spirit said.
But Bobby didn’t feel strong. He felt like a child dressing in his father’s clothes and pretending to be a man.
The row of three dumpsters butted up against a privacy fence so tall that the top of it lay three or four feet above his head. Bobby lifted the lid of the nearest dumpster and slung the bag into the growing mound of waste inside.
Raised voices on the other side of the fence made him freeze. A man and woman were arguing about something in Spanish. The woman spat out a word—idiota—that may or may not have meant what it sounded like.
Interesting.
He was about to search for a crack in the boards so he might spy on the pair and make sure one wasn’t about to harm the other, but the ringing of his phone abruptly cut him off.
He yanked it from his pocket the same instant the voices fell silent.
It was Phil.
He jammed the phone to his ear. “Hey.”
Phil’s voice sounded choked. “Kimberly called me back with some news. Graham’s awake.”
At first Bobby wasn’t sure how to respond to this proclamation, and he was vaguely aware of a door slamming somewhere beyond the fence. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
“For him, it’s a very bad thing. The aneurysm caused irreparable damage to his brain.”
“And?”
“It completely paralyzed him.”
Bobby leaned back against the dumpster, feeling dizzy. “He can’t move anything?”
“Only his eyes. It’s what they call ‘locked-in syndrome.’ That’s when a patient has full charge of his or her mental faculties but can only communicate by blinking.”
Bobby’s mind conjured an image of the deranged old man lying in a bed while humming machinery kept him alive. “How much longer do they think he has?”
“Here’s the thing. People can live for decades like that, and the state certainly isn’t going to want to pay for Graham’s long-term care. I don’t even know if there’s going to be a trial at this point. He might just end up being turned over to his family.”
Bobby was silent for a moment. Despite the terrible things Graham had done, he couldn’t help but feel some sympathy for him. “If you could heal him, would you?”
There was some hesitation in Phil’s voice when he next spoke. “No.”
“But you aren’t sure?”
“Listen, Bobby. Graham deserves this. If I was able to heal him, I’d do it only to ask why he lied about killing so many people.”
“He was probably going senile.”
“I don’t know about that.”
An inexplicable wave of irritation rose up inside of Bobby. “Don’t you know anything?”
Phil’s tone became cold. “Excuse me?”
“You didn’t know what to do when Trish died, you didn’t know what to do when Randy went to confront Graham, and you didn’t know what to do when Randy was in the hospital. Why can’t you just accept that Graham was insane?”
“What’s gotten into you?”
“Nothing.” Bobby started walking back toward the church entrance, then stopped after traveling only half a dozen paces. “Why did you call me?”
“Why wouldn’t I have called you? You’re one of us now.”
Bobby drew in a deep breath. “Sorry. I’ve had a bad day.” Something in his gut made him turn back toward the fence. About four feet to the right of the end dumpster was a half-inch gap between the boards.
“Your day hadn’t been going that badly when I saw you a while ago,” Phil said as Bobby squatted down and held his eye to the gap, seeing a yard overgrown with weeds and foot-high grass. A nondescript white house and carport sat forty feet away from the fence. No arguing people in sight.
He straightened. “Well maybe I ran into a possessed guy and had crap I did to my classmates years ago blasted right back at me like a bad movie.”
“You know it can’t hurt you.”
“It isn’t me I’m worried about. I can’t help anyone if I’m that screwed up inside.”
“Haven’t you asked for forgiveness?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Then you have nothing to worry about. You’ll never be able to get over your fears unless you face them. If you choose to run away from the possessed instead of offering them help, then the world might as well be without a Servant for all the good you’ll do.”
Bobby’s shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize to me.”
The sound of departing parishioners made Bobby turn back toward the church entrance. “I hate to cut this short,” he said, “but I’m at the church right now and need to get back to work. I’ll see you later?”
“I certainly hope so. And one last thing. The next time you run into an evil spirit, tell it that whatever it says or shows you can’t hurt you. Do you understand?”
Bobby closed his eyes and nodded. “I think so.”
“THEY CAN’T hurt me,” Bobby said as he drove back to Hillsdale at ten o’clock that night. “They can’t hurt me. They can’t hurt me. They can’t hurt me.”
“That’s the spirit,” said Thane.
Bobby almost swerved off the road. “Dude,” Bobby said as he straightened the wheel and threw a glance into his passenger seat, where the angel (was he an angel?) leaned back with his hands clasped behind his head. “Do you want me to be in an accident?”
“My apologies,” Thane said. “Perhaps you would do well to be more alert.”
“Perhaps you might consider not showing up while I’m barreling down the interstate at seventy miles an hour. Caleb wouldn’t do that.”
A shrug. “I’m sure he would if he had to.”
“So you do know Caleb.”
“I’m aware of his existence. From what I understand, he’s been helping out the Servants much longer than I have.”
Bobby’s heart skipped a beat. “What do you mean?”
“Didn’t anyone tell you? Caleb has been around for eons, showing up whenever the Servants have needed him. You shouldn’t be so surprised.”
Even as Thane said it, the idea began to make more sense. “Randy and Phil kept asking me a ton of questions about Caleb when I told them he’d disappeared.” When Bobby’s roommate vanished the week before, there hadn’t even been indentations in the carpet where Caleb’s furniture had been—a fact that had briefly made Bobby doubt his own sanity. “You think they knew who he was?”
“It’s possible.”
The excitement at this revelation dispelled the surprise of Thane’s arrival. “And what about Graham? If Caleb helped out the Servants before, wouldn’t Graham have recognized him when Caleb and I showed up to rent the bungalow?”
“Not if Graham never had a personal experience with him. And many people go by that name. He would have had no reason to assume the Caleb renting his house was the Caleb who aided his brethren in times of trouble.”
“Do you think Caleb was protecting me from Graham?”
“His presence certainly didn’t hurt you. After all, if you’d rented Graham’s house by yourself, you would have been far more appealing as a victim.”
Bobby shivered at the thought. “If you ever run into Caleb, tell him I said thanks.”
Thane beamed. “Consider it done.”
“So why are you here right now?”
“I was going to remind you that saving this woman might require you to do some things you’re not comfortable with. You should do them anyway.”
Alarm bells went off somewhere inside Bobby’s head. “That doesn’t sound like something Randy would have done.”
“You’re not Randy, and you’re not Phil, either. You’re Bobby Roland. You’re your own man. Remember that.”
Thane vanished. Bobby tried not to let it unnerve him.
Don’t do anything stupid, the Spirit said.
“I’ll do my best.”
THE PINK Rooster’s lot was so packed with cars and motorcycles this time of
night that Bobby had to park at an abandoned video rental next door.
He checked himself in the mirror on the back of the sun visor to make sure he still looked different enough from earlier in the day that he wouldn’t be recognized at first glance. The bartender might have become suspicious if Bobby came back tonight, so he’d changed into one of his few pairs of black jeans and a plain black t-shirt and made a quick stop at Randy’s house to borrow one of the decorative chains Randy used to adorn his pants.
Randy, not asking any of the questions that Bobby could practically hear perched on the edge of his tongue, had also let Bobby take a chain necklace with a silver skull pendant and a pair of black clip-on stud earrings that Randy claimed to have worn as a teenager. Bobby then went into Randy’s bathroom, wet his hair down, and mussed it up without combing it back out.
“You look like I did when I was about fourteen,” Randy observed from his resting place on the couch.
“Gee, thanks.”
Randy yawned and closed his eyes. “You’re welcome. Just watch out, though, because I have an idea you’re not dressing up just for kicks.”
“Don’t worry. I’m just going undercover.”
“Make sure nobody kills you, okay?” Randy’s tone held a hint of humor, but Bobby knew he was serious.
“I promise I’ll come back in one piece. But don’t tell Phil what I’m up to, because I have an idea he won’t be as lenient as you.”
Bobby got out of the car and crossed a grassy median between the two lots, feeling as conspicuous as if he had a spotlight shining upon him. He didn’t want to look fourteen. He wanted to look tough.
“They can’t hurt me,” he muttered one last time before entering the bar.
The establishment was dim this time of night. The music wasn’t quite as loud as it had been that afternoon, but the babble of dozens of voices made up the difference.
Vern, the bartender, was too busy taking orders and filling glasses to look Bobby’s way. Patrons young and old occupied stools at the counter. Each booth was crammed full, the tables in the center of the room were buried under card games, and a few leather-clad bikers slouched against the back wall draining glasses of beer. Many hard faces in the crowd made a nervous sweat form on Bobby’s scalp.
Jack Willard and his aura did not figure among the throng.
Bobby would have to find a way to blend in while he waited for him to arrive. If he arrived.
He put his hands in his pockets and drifted over to a table where a foursome was engaged in a game of poker. Neither the players nor the few spectators crowded around the table paid him any notice.
Bobby pretended to take interest in watching the game. Every minute or so he risked a look at the front door, but none of the new arrivals was Jack.
He wanted to order something to drink since his mouth grew more parched by the minute, but Vern would see through his disguise at once. He couldn’t even try to blend in better by ordering a beer since he wouldn’t be twenty-one until November and he couldn’t count on Vern to not ask for his ID.
A thunk and sudden yelling at one of the booths along the front wall startled Bobby out of his ruminations. A greasy-haired man stood up from the vinyl bench seat, his pants soaking wet from the glass of beer that one of his comrades had just knocked over. He came around to the opposite side of the booth, drew back a fist, and punched the other man in the jaw so hard that Bobby could hear the impact of flesh on flesh over the sound of the music and drunken conversations.
The man who’d spilled the beer blinked stupidly at his companion and staggered to his feet. “Whatcha do that for?”
The man with beer soaking the front of his pants like he’d waited too long for the bathroom replied by swinging his fist back again and striking the other man in the temple.
The other man swayed as if stunned and then crumpled to the floor.
Cheers went up all around. “Go Darren! You the man, Darren! That’ll teach him!”
Darren shrugged and resumed his seat as if nothing had happened.
Bobby felt the urge to go help the man lying catatonic on the bar’s hardwood floor, but to do so would draw unwanted attention to himself.
Could he really be that selfish?
No, he couldn’t. He was going to help people now even if a premonition didn’t tell him to.
He stepped away from the poker table and cleared his throat. “Isn’t anyone going to help that guy?” he said to a curly-haired woman crossing the room holding a plate of chili cheese fries.
She had so much makeup caked on her face she resembled a clown. “What’s it to you?” she sniffed. “Henry’s always doing something to poor Darren. He’s had it coming for weeks.”
The woman may have been right, but that didn’t ease Bobby’s guilt at letting the man just lie there. Bobby gritted his teeth and hurried over to see what he could do to help before someone came along and trod across the man in drunken obliviousness.
Sometimes doing the right thing could really throw a wrench into one’s plans.
Bobby kept an eye on the other patrons as he knelt beside Henry’s still form. The curly-haired woman eyed Bobby with disgust as she set the plate down on a far table but other than that nobody gave him notice.
He turned his attention back to the victim.
Henry wore a torn denim jacket and had a scraggly beard full of crumbs. The places where Darren hit him were already bruising so much that if he had any dignity at all he’d go home and not leave the house for a week.
At least he was breathing.
Bobby grabbed his shoulder and shook it. “Hey. Wake up.”
Henry let out a groan.
Darren, still sitting in the booth, cast his gaze down at Bobby and laughed. “Go ahead and wake him up. I’ll just knock him out again.”
“But he might be hurt,” Bobby blurted. “He might have a concussion.”
“So what if he’s got a concussion? I’m gonna go get me another beer.” Darren hefted himself off the vinyl seat and staggered off to the counter. The remaining occupants of the booth glanced Bobby’s way for half a second before resuming their conversation.
Bobby silently cursed Mystery Woman for having come to this bar. If a man getting knocked unconscious didn’t raise alarm among the customers, then it must have been far more common than Bobby would have liked.
Which made him wonder what other violent or illegal activities might be overlooked underneath The Pink Rooster’s roof.
“Henry,” Bobby said, giving the man’s shoulder another shake. “You need to get up before someone steps on you.”
Henry’s eyes fluttered open. He brought a hand up and touched his temple, wincing. Then his eyes narrowed. “If you’re the devil, I don’t wanna be in hell no more.”
“You’re not in hell,” Bobby said. “Just a bar.”
Henry pulled himself into sitting position. “Man, Darren got me good this time. Last time he just gave me a shiner. You ever had one of those?”
“No, but a guy knocked me out last week, and that was close enough. Do you need help getting up?”
“I’ll manage.” Henry’s eyes lit up, and he snickered. “You say someone knocked you out?”
Bobby absently rubbed his head in the spot where Jack had clobbered him. “Yeah. So I kind of feel for you.”
Tears of mirth sprang into Henry’s eyes. “He feels for me. Do you hear that? He feels for me!”
Bobby became aware of the fact that ten or more patrons now had their gazes fixed on him. His heart raced. He’d drawn entirely too much attention to himself. Now he wouldn’t be able to linger around unnoticed while he waited for Jack to—
A blinding pain on the back of Bobby’s head cut off all thought, and he hit the floor with all the finesse of a dropped sack of bricks.
The last thing he remembered before drifting away was a shadowy aura dancing in the back of his mind.
BOBBY CAME to in a dark, unfamiliar place, feeling like someone had tried to brain him with a s
ledgehammer. He brought a hand to the back of his head, half expecting to feel gray matter leaking out through a fissure in his skull, but his hand came away dry.
Please don’t tell me I have another concussion. I can’t afford to keep going to the hospital.
He blinked to clear his vision, gradually becoming aware of the crunch-crunch of receding footsteps. Dark branches reached out to each other high over his head. The lights of unseen houses were visible as glowing specks in the distance, and a shadowy male figure meandered around silhouetted tree trunks as it moved toward the light.
Bobby counted off ten seconds before trying to stand. What had just happened? He’d been inside a bar, where a man lay unconscious on the floor…
It all came back in a rush. Bobby had tried to help the fallen man, and then someone had tried to kill him.
Okay, maybe they hadn’t really tried. If someone wanted him dead, they would have shot him or stabbed him or kept pounding him on the head until his skull caved in.
A more likely scenario was that Darren had snuck up behind him to give him a little scare for trying to help Henry, and then he’d hauled Bobby outside and dumped him like a skinny bag of garbage. Darren was probably even the one he’d seen walking away through the trees—if that were so, then Bobby had only been out for a couple of minutes.
Any longer than that, and he would have had to call an ambulance.
What a fine establishment Mystery Woman chose to visit.
Earlier the Spirit warned Bobby not to do anything stupid. Going back inside the bar would be the epitome of such. There had been that shadowy aura at the last second, but Bobby suspected the blow to his head made him imagine it.
He would wait for Jack outside.
Bobby turned in a wobbly circle to try to pinpoint the location of the bar. A mercury vapor lamp outside a building a short distance away illuminated painted blue cinder blocks.
Bobby brushed off his shirt and pants and set off toward it like a moth drawn to a bug zapper.
He walked in a weaving line back to the video rental lot and clambered into his Nissan, then monitored the bar’s front door for well over half an hour. It felt like his skull had sprouted a lump the size of a golf ball. He’d be sleeping with an icepack tonight if he ever made it to bed.
