Destroyer of Worlds

by Daniel G. Keohane

  He wouldn’t believe her. But what did she care?

  Corey’s hand moved up her arm, caressed her with sleepy fingertips. In a whisper, she told him everything that had happened with Chen, but nothing about Hank Cowles. The old man would be making an appearance in Corey’s world soon enough. No need to expedite his arrival.

  She dreaded what would happen next. Something would, and soon, if his imaginary thunder storm was any indication. She got up carefully, read Andrew’s notes over the next few minutes, trying to anticipate what kind of scenario might be playing out. Andrew was right, the conversation between Samantha and Abby in front of the clock was hopeful. Through them, if only for a brief time, Corey admitted why he’d recreated them. She had to get into his head and bring him further out, before Hank Cowles destroyed his world again, as he’d appeared to have done at least a dozen times in this man’s mind since he was admitted to the hospital. Each time through some end of the world scenario, as if Corey needed to punish himself for not dying with his family, working out more elaborate ways of being killed alongside them.

  Timing was important. Too forceful, stepping too far too quickly and he’d run, at least mentally.

  Again, the idea that Hank Cowles was somehow pulling the levers in Corey’s mind, finishing what he’d started, itched in her imagination like a scab. And, again, she reminded herself that this path led to her own madness. She was beginning to think it might already be too late for such consideration.

  Vanessa put down the notebook and returned to the bed for a few more minutes, wrapped her arms around Corey’s body, played with the waistband of his pants, enjoying the moment without worrying about being exposed, and hating herself for it.

  FRIDAY

  I

  Corey

  On the last day of his life, Corey Union opened his eyes to a beautiful, sun-filled morning. He turned in the large bed, listened for a while to Samantha’s rhythmic breathing. No Abby, however. Sam must have brought her back to her own bed at some point. He stretched, careful not to wake his wife and glanced at the clock. Five minutes before the alarm was set to go off. No sense closing his eyes again. He reached out, turned it off. At least Sam won’t be awakened by the static voices. Let her sleep. God knew, he’d done enough of that himself yesterday.

  No dreams last night, not that he could remember. No monster forks from the sky, no burning mushroom clouds. Nothing. The sleep of the dead. All of the strangeness and stress of the past few days had sweated out under the sheets. Today would be better. Today would be normal. He’d make sure of it.

  Corey slipped out of bed, brushed his teeth, stepped into the shower. Maybe he’d allow himself to get to work a little later this morning and get Abby up himself. Let Samantha sleep. Their morning ritual of embracing and tender goodbyes was a pleasure he looked forward to on waking, but they would see each other tonight. Showered and shaved, he stepped into the hall and waited, head tilted. No foul stench, nothing but green summer smells, a hint of roses opening to the sun outside the living room windows. What if he called in sick again, took the day with Abby? She had a play date with some girl named Honey. Who was he to stand in the way of her first friendship in town?

  Corey bypassed the kitchen and squatted in front of the clock on the hearth. It occurred to him that all the strangeness of the week began not when Vanessa had first introduced herself, but when he’d found the key and wound this ugly thing up for the first time. As foolishly superstitious as this connection sounded to him, there had been the incident with the bees and the clock the other night. Again, stupid, but hard to shake. The real world crowded his mind with enough thorns. He didn’t need to invent any more.

  His ankles ached from hunkering, but Corey continued to stare at the shiny boy presenting the clock with a mighty ta-da! Antique or not, it was becoming a source of stress.

  His next decision was the obvious conclusion, if not a little irrational even to him. He would not wind the clock. Let it wind down and once it died and life got back to normal, superstition or not, Corey would tuck the thing back into its Misc. box, new key included, and toss it in the attic. Maybe someday, when he found the nerve, and his sanity again, he might take it down.

  Probably not.

  In some far back room in his mind, he heard their strange new neighbor say, That’s good, Corey. Very good.

  He should add one more item to his Hundred Things list. Spend as little time around that woman as possible. Keeping Sam away from her new friend might prove more daunting. He stood up finally, ankles straining, never taking his eyes from the boy and his Amazing Clock. First thing’s first. When the haunted clock went night-night, his neighbor might magically change into someone normal. Back to a pumpkin at the stroke of midnight, falling asleep in the garden.

  Writing Sam’s poetry again. The temptation to sneak into her notebook and write it down was dangerously tempting. After the other night, they’d not spoken about it again. Any interference by him with her hobby now would prove she’d been right about not sharing her secret with him.

  II

  “Put this in your pocket. There, good girl. That’s our phone number. If you want to call me, you just give this to Mrs.—” Samantha mentally searched back to the conversation with Fran in the library. Abby stared at her, waiting. “Abby, what’s Honey’s last name?”

  She shrugged. “I dunno. She didn’t tell me.”

  Sam tucked the slip of paper into the pocket of her daughter’s jeans skirt. “Well, no matter. I’ll ask her mother when I drop you off.”

  Abby took out the slip of paper and began reciting the numbers. When she was done, she gave her mother a narrow look and said, “Do I have to call you?”

  Sam felt a piece of her heart fold into itself. No, Sweetie, she thought, you don’t. You’re growing up so fast, but you still need me. I need you. “No, Sweetie,” she said, “only if you need to. I’ll pick you up before dinner, how’s that?”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Abby said with a nod, so much like her father.

  With her two favorite Barbie dolls, one adorned with a wedding dress, the other in dancer’s leggings and fluorescent leotard, Abby climbed into the mini-van. With hastily scribbled directions from Fran between her own hand and the steering wheel, Samantha drove north through streets she hadn’t yet explored. Now and then they passed homes situated close to the road on small lots, but the majority of driveways were spaced far apart, houses invisible through the thick foliage. Hillcrest was a marriage of unspoiled nature and cultivated lawns, exhaling calm into Sam’s open car window. So wrapped up was she in the perfection around her she noticed too late the rusted, dented street sign and passed Fran’s road. She did a three-point turn and pulled into the street, never once meeting another car coming in either direction. Over the next hill, Fran’s short driveway led to a sweeping semi-circle in front of a brown French Tudor. Samantha half-expected a valet to rush out and take her keys, but the only people in sight were Fran and her bouncy daughter with the strange name. A name, however, which fit the world they now lived in.

  III

  Vanessa

  “Oh, I think they’ll get along just fine,” Corey said, his voice taking on the throaty rasp he’d used for Honey’s mother in the library. He was slumped in the recliner opposite the couch, fireplace on his left, a sagging cardboard box which once contained a six-pack of Sterno fire starter logs perched at the edge of the raised granite hearth. To Corey, this box was an ugly, frightening heirloom, one which he’d decided to hide away in the attic this morning after it wound down for good.

  Vanessa leaned back on the couch, open notebook beside her, watching the story unfold like the children had done in the library in this man’s mind yesterday.

  In a pale, neutral voice, void of emotion, he said, “Sam nods and takes the woman’s hand, wanting to step fully into the house, sit at the kitchen table, tell the Stepford wife that she’ll be fine right here, just ignore her. I want to be ready in case my daughter gets frightened. She
didn’t. Instead, Sam smiled, trying to emulate the easy, concealing grin the woman before her had perfected, and said, ‘I’m sure you’re right. In case you need to reach me sooner than five, our number is on a piece of paper in Abby’s pocket.’”

  Corey stopped, blank face staring at Vanessa, never seeing her.

  Part of the pattern. His imagination recharging. Vanessa had never tried writing fiction, but imagined this was how a novelist might work, cover as much ground as the muse allowed then stop, think, imagine, build another corner of her world.

  Then, when ready, continue.

  “A fear suddenly gripped her,” he said suddenly, ”so much so that she almost asked for the slip of paper back. She’d torn the sheet from her notebook.” As he said this, Vanessa unconsciously moved her hand over her log book, caught herself and stopped. As far as she could glean from Corey’s brother and two long-distance conversations with Samantha Union’s only relative, an elderly aunt living in Minnesota, Samantha had never written poetry, was never much of a writer at all. The old woman had apologized, though, as she’d been, in her words, a bit of a “distant relation.” Still, as he spoke, Corey registered everything going on around him, and sometimes used what he saw in his own world. The spiral notebook had been a constant presence here.

  “What if a line from her poetry had been scribbled on the other side,” he continued. “Had she checked?”

  He stopped again. Vanessa remembered Hank Cowles, how he’d quoted the line of Samantha’s poetry. It was written down, somewhere in the log beside her. Unless Andrew or Robert was secretly spying for the man, the only other possibility was that Sam’s poetry was, in fact, lifted from somewhere else, buried memories of an old high school composition class. Maybe Corey himself was the writer. Though nothing in his records indicated as much, it would explain his ability to paint such vivid worlds with only his voice. What it did not explain, however, was how Cowles knew to use the line in the first place.

  There was another possibility, of course, but Vanessa ignored it.

  “She did not,” Corey said, “but played the dutiful role of neighbor and trusted this stranger with her child’s life.”

  His narrator’s voice had sharpened, deepened. Vanessa leaned forward. A tremor, a memory intruding on his narrative. …trusted this stranger with her child’s life. She waited for these moments.

  Corey swallowed, then shut down, eyes still closed. If his posture in the soft chair hadn’t suddenly become straighter, more rigid, Vanessa would think he’d fallen asleep. He wasn’t, but he was definitely done for now, having drifted too close to what he’d spent so long avoiding. Corey would stay like this, coming back to life enough to eat (depending on what time it was in his world), go to the bathroom or, if Vanessa was lucky, continue the story.

  She had to go to the bathroom, herself, anyway.

  “Corey, I’m going to the bathroom. Please stay where you are. Do you promise?”

  Of course he didn’t answer. Vanessa went into the bathroom but left the door open. When she’d finished, and walked back into the room, he was still there. She returned to the couch and curled up, made some notes in the book. Reaching over to the end table, she picked up the dog-eared paperback she’d been reading and settled in for the wait.

  IV

  Corey

  The heated political debate between Andrew Booth and Robert Schard on the walk back from their project status meeting was tempered, to the point where Corey had to suppress the urge to ask what was wrong. Everyone in the group understood the need for subtlety, at least when Corey was around. They probably made remarks when he wasn’t with them, but in his company, they respected his desire, his need, to stay buried as deep in the sand as possible. That never stopped them from competing for the most jabs and puns while they gave their summaries of the past week to the project leader, Jacob Harris. Today was different. Jacob’s half-smile, the mask he wore when enduring the usual childishness wasn’t needed this afternoon. Facts were given, estimates offered for completion. First Andrew, then Robert, finally looking down the table to Corey who stammered out his inadequacies. Their manager nodded, never smiling, never writing anything down.

  The meeting ended quickly with Jacob saying, “Amanda Wails has issued a statement I need to pass on. Given what’s happened in D.C. and San Diego, all off-site training and business travel has been suspended indefinitely. She’s issuing a formal memo before the end of the day. Check your email. I don’t suppose I need to elaborate?”

  He’d looked pointedly at Corey, who had no clue what Jacob, or the company’s chief executive officer for that matter, was talking about. He shook his head and that was it. Jacob stood and muttered, “Try to have a good weekend, guys,” before leaving the room.

  Now, as the threesome returned to their aisle, all Corey wanted to do was go home. Maybe call Sam so she could find out what was happening, wrap it in words he might be able to swallow. She probably knew already, would know the best way to tell him. How bad could it be? She hadn’t called; it was a beautiful day. Most people had come into work even though it was Friday.

  Turning into the first cubical, Robert said, “OK, back to work.” Andrew Booth nodded without replying, moved into his space and disappeared below the half wall. Corey stopped before entering his own at the sight of an old man sitting in the guest chair.

  Hank Cowles smiled and waved a pale, spotted hand towards the desk chair. Corey did not move. He grabbed the top of the wall, unsure what to do or say. How had that psycho gotten in here?

  “I told them I was your father,” Hank said. “You weren’t at your desk, but the nice security woman let me in so I could wait.”

  Corey shook his head. “She wouldn’t do that. You’re not an employee.”

  Hank laughed, laid his hands flat on the legs of his tan chinos. “Dem dere’s the rules, boyo.” He swiped his hands across his thighs, raised them up, liver spotted planes taking flight. “But you must understand by now. If you don’t, you will soon enough. I get whatever I want, at whatever cost. Please, sit.”

  Corey didn’t want to sit. He glanced over the top of the half-wall. Andrew was turned in his direction. The big man raised an eyebrow, gestured a hand towards his phone and mouthed, Call Security? Corey looked at Hank, back over the wall and shook his head. Why bother? He stepped into his cubical and sat, turned his chair towards his guest. Hank craned his neck and said loud enough to be heard over the wall, “Thank you for your concern, Mister Booth. I trust you won’t interfere any further in my affairs?”

  Andrew rose over the wall like a dark moon. The skin around his clenched jaw was splotched gray. He stared at Hank but said to Corey, “You call me if you need me, Corey, OK?”

  Corey thought, What the hell is going on? “Do you two know each other?”

  His cubical neighbor’s jaw loosened a little. He mumbled, “No, no. Just a lot on my mind, I suppose. Sorry.”

  Then he was gone.

  Corey closed his eyes, did not want to—

  “Look at me, young man,” Hank said.

  V

  Vanessa

  “I said, ‘Look at me.’” Corey’s voice had taken on the thin, papery quality of Hank’s voice. Corey’s rendition was quite different from the way the man actually sounded, Vanessa now knew. She was curled up on the couch, paperback closed beside her. It had been over three hours since Corey’s story had paused. Three hours, lunch for both—Corey had moved to the table under her gentle guidance, ate the sandwich she’d put in front of him without speaking, drank the milk, moved back to the couch, same posture—and another bathroom break for Vanessa.

  Now things had resumed. She found it interesting that the character of Andrew Booth had taken such a sudden, active role. He usually only made an appearance in his world when the real Andrew was physically in the room. Corey had delegated him to the role of co-worker as an excuse for his existence. But the players in his world needed to be consistent, to be in their place when required. She supposed—
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  Corey shook his head, eyes still closed but tighter than usual, fighting. “Don’t want to look,” he whispered, “don’t want to.”

  Vanessa spoke up. “Corey, you don’t need to look at him. He’s a bad man. He’s not real. Hank Cowles cannot hurt you or make you do anything you -”

  “Shut up, bitch!” His eyes opened, paper voice tighter, just as dry and aged, but now sharp with hate. “You’ve had your time with him; now shut the fuck up!”

  Vanessa leaned against the back of the couch. What the hell was that? This was the first time one of his characters spoke to her directly. The real her. Maybe this was a good thing. Corey was staring. She nodded at him to go on, took up her notebook, wrote down the dialogue so far.

  Corey’s eyes closed. He cleared his throat, opened them. He stared at Vanessa but did not see her, not any longer. “Where’s your dog?” he asked. No fear in his voice. In fact, he sounded annoyed.

  Very good, Corey. Fight him. Beat him.

  VI

  Corey

  “She’s keeping an eye on other matters,” Hank said, and again did the twin plane take-off movement against his pant legs. The gesture reminded Corey of a pouting child, bored with having to sit still for too long. He was not looking at Corey, only his own spotted hands as they rose up, sailed back down. Any fat in the old man’s body had long ago evaporated. All that was left was skin and bones.

  “What—” Corey began, then glanced at his monitor. He’d been timed out, would now have to enter his password to get back in. He continued looking at the screen when he said, “What do you want, Mister Cowles?”

  “You didn’t wind the clock last night, or this morning. That troubles me. Thought I would come by, see if there was something wrong, something you might need. We can all use a friend to keep us motivated.”

  How could he have known? Corey pictured the clock’s round face, the slowing of the hands. Maybe Hank Cowles was not really here. Maybe Corey was hallucinating, going crazy. What was that thing… schizophrenia? Hearing and seeing things—