“Maybe I’ll call somebody in the morning. Right now, I just want to lie down.”
“So you can swallow your tongue or some shit in the middle of the night, die up in that room?”
“That’s unlikely.”
“Look, I’m just saying—”
“I get it,” Eric said, and the force of his words brought Kellen up short. He studied Eric for a few seconds, then gave him a shrug and turned away.
“I appreciate the concern,” Eric said, softer. “I really do. But I don’t want to go to a hospital and tell them I’m having blackouts from Pluto Water, okay?”
“You think that was from the water?”
Eric nodded. “The headache came back and was getting worse. By the time we left Anne’s, I was feeling bad. Thought maybe it would help if I just got some food.”
“Didn’t help.”
“No. Sorry about your dinner, by the way. You were starving.”
Kellen laughed. “Not a big deal, man. I can always eat. What you got going on, though… that’s something needs to be figured out.”
“Withdrawal symptoms,” Eric said.
“You think?”
“Yeah. Definitely. The physical problems go away when I have more of the water and get worse the longer I go without it. Anne McKinney’s right—I’ve got to figure out what’s in that bottle.”
“And until then?”
Eric was quiet.
“This is why I suggested a hospital,” Kellen said. “I believe you—it’s probably withdrawal from whatever is in that water. But if it’s getting worse, you could be in real trouble. That act you pulled back there was scary, man.”
“I could just take more of the water, if that’ll relax you.” It was supposed to be a joke, but Kellen tilted his head sideways, thoughtful.
“Wow, you’d be good in AA,” Eric said. “That’s not one of the ideas you’re supposed to support.”
“No, I was just thinking, what if you tried different water?”
“I drank about ten glasses of water today, trying to flush this out. Hasn’t helped.”
“Not regular water. Regular Pluto water.” Kellen nodded at the bottle Anne McKinney had given him. “It’s a thought, at least. Things get worse tonight, try her bottle before you go back to yours.”
Kellen dropped Eric off at his hotel, and the look he had when Eric got out of the car was that of a parent watching a child wander toward traffic.
Eric’s headache was whispering to him again by the time he got off the elevator, and the sense of defeat he had at that realization was heavy. He’d hoped that the episode during dinner had been punishment enough, that he’d earned a few hours of reprieve. Evidently not.
The message light on the room phone was dark and his cell showed no missed calls. He felt a vague sense of apprehension over that, having expected Gavin Murray to try and make contact again, to put some other offer—or threat—on the table. He called Alyssa Bradford again and got voice mail. Annoyed, he waited ten minutes and called back, still with no success. This time he left a message. Call immediately, he said. There is a serious problem to discuss.
Serious problem seemed almost too light a phrase. Where was Gavin Murray now? The blue minivan hadn’t been in sight when Kellen brought him back, but it seemed unlikely that Murray was driving back to Chicago already. Eric got his laptop out and logged onto the Internet, ran some searches under both Murray’s name and the name of his company, Corporate Crisis Solutions. Didn’t find much on Murray—his name on some roll of military personnel attending a reunion at Fort Bragg was the most noteworthy result. Bragg was home to the Special Ops boys.
Corporate Crisis Solutions didn’t have much of a Web profile either. There was a company site, but it seemed intentionally vague. A few pages for private investigators offered links with CCS contact information. Hell, he should call Paul Porter, ask him what he knew. Paul had done twenty years as a criminal defense attorney before selling his first book and giving up the practice to write a series of best-selling novels about an intrepid crime-solving lawyer, no doubt some sort of pathetic wish fulfillment. Still, he was connected to the Chicago police and legal worlds both through his writing and his background, and he’d probably heard of the firm, and maybe even Gavin Murray.
“I won’t give him the satisfaction,” Eric muttered. That was just what Paul would want, wayward son-in-law calling for help. Son of a bitch had actually suggested once that he and Eric work together to shop the film rights for Paul’s novels, which he’d been hanging on to all these years despite offers. I could write, and you could direct, Paul had said. Yeah, that would’ve been a hell of a pairing.
Eric had actually liked the guy all right at first. They’d gotten along just fine back when they were separated by a few thousand miles and Eric’s career was on an upward trajectory. Paul hadn’t displayed any less ego over his little series of detective novels back then, but it hadn’t rankled Eric as much either. Probably because things were going well on his end. Gave him a layer of protection. It wasn’t until they’d moved back to Chicago and Paul was underfoot at all times that it got really bad. All those damn suggestions of his, the ideas, story proposals—shit, they had never stopped.
He closed the laptop, beginning to suspect that staring at the screen was goosing his headache. He turned the lights off and put the TV on, tried again to distract himself from the pain. Over on the desk, Alyssa Bradford’s bottle glittered and sweated, and Anne McKinney’s stood beside it, dark and dry.
Let them sit, he told himself. Let them sit there untouched. I know what’s coming for me, and I can take it. I won’t drink the water again, though.
28
JOSIAH WAS BACK IN the gray city again, that colorless empire, and the wind blew through the alleys and whistled around the old-fashioned cars that lined the empty streets. A huffing noise filled his ears and he knew before he turned to look that it was the train coming on and thought, I’ve had this dream before.
But at least the train was coming back for him. Dream or no dream, he’d lost it last time, run after it and couldn’t catch up and then found himself in that field walking hard against the dark. Yes, if the train came back around this time, he surely ought to take it.
He stood to the side and watched as it thundered toward him, stone dust rising from beneath its wheels, a funnel of black smoke pouring from the stack. All just as it had been. Good. Must be the same train.
It slowed as it passed, and again he could see the white car with the splash of red across its doors, the colors standing out so stark against all that gray. He walked toward it, eager now, as the locomotive whistle shrilled and the train lost momentum. This one was headed home. The man in the bowler hat had promised him that.
And there was the man, visible in the open boxcar door as he had been before. He wasn’t leaning out of it this time but sitting with his arms resting on raised knees and his back pressed against the door frame. He lifted his head as Josiah approached, used one finger to push the hat up on his forehead.
“’Spect you want a ride,” he said when they were close enough for words, and the smile was gone, the charm not present in his eyes this time.
Josiah said he’d be more than happy for a ride, provided they were still homeward bound. The man paused at that, considered Josiah through those dark eyes. Josiah could hear a gentle splashing from inside the car, saw drops of water coming out over the rim of the door frame and falling to the sidewalk below.
“Told you we was homeward bound last time through,” the man said. “Told you there was a need to hurry should you want a ride.”
The man seemed displeased, and that made Josiah’s stomach tremble and his skin prickle as if from the touch of something cold. He told the man that he had desired a ride, indeed, and that he’d run in pursuit of the train, run as best as his legs could do, and still not caught up.
The man listened to that, then tilted his head and spit a plume of tobacco juice toward Josiah’s feet.
/> “I was to tell you it’s time to get aboard now, you’d take heed?” he said.
Josiah assured him that was a fact.
“You’d also understand,” the man said, “I might be needing you for a piece of work when we get home.”
Josiah asked what that work would entail.
“A good mind and a strong back,” the man said. “And an ability to take direction. Might those be traits you possess?”
Josiah said they were, but he wasn’t overly pleased at the prospect, and it must have shown in his face.
“You don’t think that’s a fair exchange?” the man asked, his eyes wide.
Josiah didn’t answer that, and up ahead the steam whistle blew again and the engine began to chug. The man smiled at him and spread his hands.
“Well,” he said, “you know another way of getting home, you’re welcome to it.”
Josiah was unaware of another way home, and he’d already missed this train once. Time came when you had to make a sacrifice or two in the pursuit of what you desired, and right now Josiah desired a ride home. He told the man he’d get aboard.
“About time,” the man said, and then he rose to offer Josiah his hand and help him into the boxcar. When he stood, water streamed from his suit. Josiah edged closer to the train and leaned forward.
Took his hand.
Part Three
A SONG FOR THE DEAD
29
AN HOUR AFTER KELLEN dropped him off, Eric’s headache was back in full force, and he took more Excedrin and drank a few glasses of water and turned the volume on the TV louder, searching for distraction.
It didn’t work.
By eleven he had the TV off and was holding a pillow over his head.
I can beat it, he told himself. I can wait this out. I will not drink the water.
The hum soon returned to his ears, quickly built to a bell-clear ring. His mouth dried and when he blinked, it felt as if his eyelids were lined with fine grains of sand.
It’s terrible, but it’s real, too. These things are better than the alternatives. I am seeing nothing but the walls of this room and the furniture and the shadows, seeing no dead men in train cars filled with water. This I can take. This I can bear.
When the nausea caught him in full stride, he made it to the bathroom before vomiting, taking that as a comfort until the second wave hit and drove away what little strength he had left.
Let it come, he thought savagely as he lay with his cheek on the cool tile and a string of spit hanging from his lip. Let it come with the best it has, because I’m not drinking that water, won’t take a sip.
The sickness returned, even though his body was empty, and then came again, and by the end, he could no longer lift himself from the floor, racked by vicious dry heaves that seemed to spread his ribs even while squeezing his organs, the headache a crescendo and his conviction a memory.
The visions were bad, yes, but these withdrawal effects, they could kill him.
His mind went to Kellen’s suggestion, the words floating through his pain-fogged mind as he lay on the floor: Things get worse tonight, try her bottle before you go back to yours.
Anne’s bottle was on the desk, looking as normal as could be. It had been when he last saw it, at least. That had been on his way to the bathroom, and who knew how much time had passed since then. Maybe five hours, maybe fifteen minutes. He really couldn’t say.
He couldn’t stand. Managed only to get to his hands and knees, wobbling and bumping against the door frame, spit hanging from his mouth, a human pantomime of a rabid dog. He crawled forward, felt the tile change to carpet under his hands, and went left, toward the desk. He blinked hard and his vision cleared and he became aware of a glow from the top of the desk, a pale white luminescence that seemed like a guiding light.
He pulled up then and came to an abrupt stop, the rabid dog told to heel.
The light was coming from the bottle. Alyssa Bradford’s bottle. It offered a faint glow that seemed to come not from within it so much as from an electricity that clung to the outside, a sort of Saint Elmo’s fire.
Drink it.
No, no. Don’t drink it. The whole point, the reason for this absurd suffering, was to avoid taking any more of that water.
Things get worse tonight, try her bottle before yours.
Yes, her bottle. It wasn’t glowing, wasn’t covered in frost, looked entirely normal. He pulled himself over to the desk and reached for it, and when he did, his hand went to the glowing bottle first, and some part of him wanted that one desperately. He stopped himself, though, shifted his hand to Anne McKinney’s bottle, and got his fingers around it, brought it down. His breath was coming fast and uneven again, and he opened the bottle quickly and brought it to his mouth and drank.
It was hideous stuff. The sulfuric taste and smell were overpowering, and he got only two swallows down before he had to pull away. He gagged again, sagging back against the legs of the desk, and then he waited.
“Work,” he mumbled, running the tip of his tongue over lips that had gone dry and cracked. “Work.”
But he was sure it wouldn’t. The water his body desired so desperately was in the other bottle, the one putting off that faint glow and gathering ice in a seventy-degree room. This version, this sane version, would do nothing.
Then his breathing began to steady. That was the first perceptible change; he could fill his lungs once again. A few minutes after that, he felt the nausea subside, and then the headache dulled and he was on his feet again, splashing cold water on his face from the bathroom sink. He stood there with hands braced on the counter and lifted his face and stared into the mirror.
It was working. Anne’s water. What did that tell him? Well, for one thing, the Pluto Water was involved in whatever was happening to him, was part of it. Part. He couldn’t believe it was the sole cause, because Anne’s water didn’t have any of the same bizarre properties as Alyssa Bradford’s. And yet it had quelled the agony that came from Alyssa’s water. Whatever had been put into his system seemed satisfied now. Content.
As if it had just been fed.
How he’d slept so long on a rock ledge, Josiah couldn’t imagine. No pillow for his head, even, and still he’d managed to sleep past sunset. When he opened his eyes, the treetops above him were a rustling mess of shadows, and when he sat up with a grunt, the pool of water far below was no longer visible. Full night.
Two of the beers remained warm and unopened at his side. The gulf gurgled down below, and he got to his feet stiffly, thinking about the dream and unsettled by it. Wasn’t often that Josiah dreamed when he slept, and he couldn’t recall ever having the same dream twice, or even a variation of it.
But this one had returned, this dream of the man aboard the train. Strange.
He’d ordinarily hike back the way he’d come, but he had no flashlight and it was a difficult trek in the darkness even if you knew where you were going. Too many roots to stumble over and holes to turn an ankle in. Taking the road would be longer but easier.
He left the ledge and climbed to the top of the ridge and found the trail that led to the gravel drive the state had put in. From there he came out to the county road as a dog barked in the distance and the moon and stars glittered and lit the pavement with a faint white glow. To the right he could see the white sides of Wesley Chapel gleaming against the dark, and a few pale orbs surrounding it, the stone fronts of the monuments in the old cemetery also catching the moonlight. He turned left, toward home.
Not a single car passed. He hiked south, open fields on each side of him for a spell, then into the woods of Toliver Hollow, and there the road curved away and he walked east for a time before leaving it for another road and moving south once more. A half mile farther and he left the paved road for a gravel one. Almost home. He’d taken no more than twenty steps on the gravel when he pulled up short and stared.
The moon was three-quarters full and bright in the periods between clouds, and it was glittering off somet
hing just down the road from Josiah’s house.
A windshield.
A car.
Parked on the Amish farm property. Last time Josiah had checked, his Amish neighbors didn’t have cars.
He hesitated for a moment and then left the road and went into the weeds as he continued on. As he got closer, he could tell it was a van. Funny place to leave a car, and funnier still was that it was parked in one of the few locations where Josiah’s home showed in the gaps between the trees. He could see the outline of his house from here. The Amish barns were visible, but not their home. Just Josiah’s.
Someone had run out of gas or had engine trouble, no doubt, pushed the thing off the road and left it till daylight. Nothing to trouble his mind over; Josiah couldn’t give a shit whose car it was. Had nothing to do with him.
That was his thought for another fifty paces, until he saw the glow.
A brief square of blue light inside the rear of the van was visible for about five seconds and then extinguished. A cell phone. Someone was inside that van. In the back.
He felt something dark spread through him then, a feeling he knew well, his temper lifting its head on one of those occasions when it would not be denied, when fists would surely be swung and blood drawn.
Somebody was watching his house.
There was nothing else to see from there. Nothing but fields and trees and Josiah Bradford’s own home.
A memory hit him then, a flash of something seen but ignored—the blue minivan that had been pulled off the road near Edgar’s house when the man from Chicago and the black kid left. Josiah had driven right past it, had seen that it was parked off the shoulder and in the grass. Just like this one was now.
Son of a bitch was following him.
This would not be tolerated.
He dropped the beer cans he’d been carrying into the grass, then slipped down off the road and into the weed-covered ditch and picked his way along in a crouch. The van was parked facing the cattle gate, both sides exposed to the road, but its occupant was in the rear, and odds were he was watching the house and not the road.
So Cold the River Page 18
