The Wrong Goodbye

by Chris F. Holm

  I flicked on the bedside lamp and looked around. Nothing. Pissed now, I tossed off the blankets and swung my feet down to the floor, determined to find the source of the noise. But the faucet wasn't dripping, and as far as I could tell by pressing my ear to the wall, the rooms on either side of me were vacant.

  That's when I realized it was coming from the window.

  I yanked open the curtains, half-expecting to see a couple prepubescent pranksters, merrily tapping at the glass so they could rob me of my sleep. What I did see rocked me back. It was my little beetle-friend, paying me back for the kindness of not killing it by bouncing off of my window, over and over again. And the bastard had brought reinforcements. There were dozens of them – not just beetles, but also massive flying roaches, as well as moths and locusts, wasps and mayflies. The largest of them ricocheted off the glass only to regroup and try again, while the smaller ones slammed into the window like tiny kamikazes, splattering into oblivion against the pane.

  I confess, the scene had me a bit unnerved, but what the hell could I really do? Persistent though they were, the little fuckers were outside, and so long as they stayed that way, they were all right by me. I shut the curtains and snatched my still-damp towel from where I'd let it fall beside the bed, twisting it up and laying it along the seam between door and floor by way of insurance against any future six-legged visitors. Then I climbed back into bed and pulled a pillow over my head.

  This time, sleep didn't come so easy, but it eventually did come. I awoke hours later, my face still buried in the pillow, to the persistent buzzing of the alarm clock. Fucking thing must've been set by whoever stayed here last. After the night I'd had, they'd be lucky if I didn't hunt them down and throttle them for their thoughtlessness.

  I pulled the pillow down tighter over my head, but it wasn't any use – that buzzing refused to be ignored. Fine, then – I'd just have to shut it up. I took a blind swipe in the general direction of the bedside table. A swing and a miss. I tried again. My hand whacked the corner of the table and came back smarting. The third time, I managed to give the alarm a good wallop, but the buzzing didn't stop, and why the fuck was my hand sticky?

  I tossed off the pillow and looked around. Then my whole body clenched as revulsion washed over me. Every surface of the room was coated in a shifting mass of bugs – crawling, scrabbling, flitting back and forth with the electric hum of a thousand insect wings. They covered the floor, the ceiling, the bed on which I laid. A thick smear of snot-green flecked with shards of black encrusted the top of the alarm clock where I'd smacked it, and as I watched, the smear and then the clock itself disappeared beneath a teeming swarm of scratching, hissing, buzzing things.

  It was then I realized that I was covered in them, too. Their tiny legs pricked against my arms, my chest, my back. I could feel them winding through my hair. When one sought refuge in my ear, I shuddered, thankfully shaking it free. I tried in vain to brush away the rest, but there were too many, and they just kept on coming. Thousands of them. Millions. They were pouring into the room from a vent high above the bed, its louvers bent out of shape by the sheer magnitude of the invading force. From the thick paste of carnage the creatures pushed through to enter the room, it was clear that thousands of them must've died in their attempt to gain entry – but why? What in God's name were they doing here?

  The answer was right in front of me, but in my panic, I almost didn't see it. There, atop the shifting insect landscape before me, was my little beetlefriend. It drifted toward me from the foot of the bed as if by magic, its cohorts beneath it conveying it ever closer.

  And with it, its payload.

  Once the beetle and its earthen ball reached me, it stopped. The mass of insects beneath it still boiled with activity, all red and brown and iridescent blue, but the fat black beetle held its ground, regarding me with what I couldn't help but think was an expectant gaze. Then it nudged the ball toward me once more with one spindly, bristle-laden leg.

  Gingerly, I accepted the proffered package, and the sea of insects seemed to calm a little – not receding, exactly, but quieting, as though waiting for my response. My heart was anything but quiet as it thudded painfully in my chest. What I'd taken for a ball of dirt wasn't dirt at all, though its surface was filthy enough that my mistake was understandable. No, what the tiny creature had been carrying was in fact a small bundle of cloth – once military drab, but now black from the dirt in which it had been buried.

  I recognized that bundle. Of course, I should have – I'd buried it two days and a continent ago.

  It was a soul – Varela's soul. And suddenly, the insects that surrounded me made sense.

  These creatures were Deliverants.

  They were Deliverants, and they were angry.

  I wasn't yet sure why, but I was beginning to get an idea. Whatever was going on, Danny Young had set me up.

  He'd set me up, and he was going to pay.

  7.

  That fucking son of a bitch. In all my time as a Collector, I'd never once had occasion to interact with my Deliverants, and now after my meeting with Danny, they flat-out reject the soul I'd buried? That was too much of a coincidence for me to swallow. The question was, why had they rejected it? What exactly had Danny done? I didn't know, but I had an idea how I might find out. So I left the motel in my rearview, and headed out into the night to get some answers.

  I eyed the door before me. It was typical for the front door of an apartment – stainless steel, and reinforced, at that. But the jamb was standard pressure-treated lumber, and the building wasn't young, which meant that all that held this tank of a door closed was a latch installed in a plank of aging wood. Not great if subtle's what you're shooting for, but easy enough to pop if you don't mind a little noise.

  Right now, I didn't mind a little noise.

  I glanced back toward the front of the building where I'd left the Fiesta, but the night was getting on, and there wasn't anyone about. The place itself was nestled in an upscale residential neighborhood, and from the curb, it looked to be yet another in a line of neoclassical homes, all stark white and austere, with a series of four columns flanking its massive, transomed entryway. But the hearse in the large circle drive out front and the tasteful, somber sign beside it indicated otherwise. No, the only living going on around here was in the apartment tucked around back – and that's just where I was headed.

  The first kick made a hell of a noise, but the door didn't budge. The second, and the wood began to splinter. If this were some cheesy dime-store novel, I suppose the third time woulda done the trick, but the fact is, I had to kick that fucking door a half a dozen times before it finally gave, swinging inward with a sickening crack and a hail of wooden shards.

  I was inside in a flash. Ethan Strickland was cowering behind an upturned kitchen table, a Louisville Slugger in one hand and a cordless phone in the other. He was trying desperately to dial the cops, but his hands were shaking so bad, it was all he could manage not to drop the phone – that, or bean himself with the bat.

  I spotted the base of the phone on an end table beside the couch, and I dove for it, wrenching the phone cord from the wall. Ethan stared in horror for a moment, and then leapt at me with a guttural – if not entirely manful – scream, his bat brandished high above his head.

  I rolled. He missed. His bat instead met the floor with a crack, and Ethan yelped in pain and surprise as his wispy frame was wracked by the reverberations. He tried to wheel toward me, but I'd already found my feet, and I sidestepped the blow with ease. Then I wrenched the bat from his hands and drew it back to strike. It was instinct, nothing more, and when I saw him cowering on the floor, his hands raised to protect his tear-streaked face, I tossed the bat aside. Then I extended a hand to help him up. But he just lay there, cowering, and regarded my hand as though it were an asp about to strike.

  "You OK?" I asked him.

  He said nothing. I stooped a bit to bring my hand closer, and he flinched.

  "Look, I'm sorr
y about the entrance, but I had a feeling if I knocked, you weren't going to let me in."

  Still nothing – that is, unless you counted the sobbing.

  "Damn it, Ethan, I'm not here to hurt you – I'm here because I need your help! Now will you take my hand so I can help you up?"

  He blinked at me a moment, and then accepted my offer with one trembling, hesitant hand. I helped him up off the floor. He wiped the tears from his cheeks with his sleeve, gulping air all the while, and cast a sly sidelong glance toward the gaping apartment door.

  "I wouldn't," I said, and he deflated slightly.

  "P-p-please d-don't…" he stammered as he tried to bring his panicked breathing under control. "Don't tie me up again. I couldn't take it."

  "Yeah, I'm sorry about that, but it was for your own good. As for whether I'm going to have to do it again, that's going to depend a lot on you. Besides, you look like you came out of it OK."

  "Took me six hours to get out," he said. "My legs still hurt like hell."

  "You call the cops?"

  "No," he said too quickly.

  "OK, I'll take that as a yes." His eyes bugged out in panic, and he went a little green. "It's OK, Ethan – I would've too if I were you. But it does complicate things a little. Which means you're going to have to make it up to me."

  His eyes narrowed. He took a small step backward. "What do you mean, make it up to you? Make it up to you how?"

  Fuck it, I thought. The truth was probably the safest thing I could tell him – after all, who in their right mind was gonna believe him?

  "The fact is, Ethan, I am not the guy they wheeled in to your funeral home. That guy's dead and gone – I'm just borrowing his body for a while. As for who or what I actually am, that's complicated, and you're probably better off not knowing. Suffice it to say, I'm a guy who's got a job to do, just like you. Now, if you help me do my job, I promise you I'll walk out that door tonight and you'll never see me again. If, on the other hand, you don't…"

  Ethan swallowed hard. It seemed he got the picture. Good thing, too, because that whole implied violence thing was nothing but a bluff – the worst I was going to do to the guy was tie him up again until I got what I came for. Still, this night was going to go a whole lot smoother if he'd cooperate, so I'm glad he was on board.

  "W-what," he said, wincing at the quaver in his voice. "What is it that you need?"

  "What I need, Ethan, is a body."

  "You sure this is the best you got?"

  Ethan shrugged his shoulders. With his willowy frame, he looked sort of like a twitchy scarecrow. "It's been a slow week, death-wise. Besides, uh, you, Mr Frohman's all we've got. He was the sausage king of Chicago!" he added helpfully.

  "Yeah," I said, "he looks it."

  Though the guy wasn't an inch over five-four, he must've gone four hundred pounds, and every inch of him was covered in a thick mat of hair – well, every inch that wasn't on his head. Even in death, his face had a sort of pinkish hue; I couldn't help but think it was his sausage subjects who'd eventually dethroned him. Eh, I thought, he'll do. And hell, it's not like I'd have to worry about him making a break for it.

  I fished Varela's bundled soul from my pocket and picked at the dirt-caked twine until finally, the knot untied. The tiny orb swirled gray-black atop the scrap of fabric in my open hand, and Ethan stared at it, entranced. "What is that?" he asked, his voice full of awe and wonder.

  "Gumball," I replied. The pale man frowned. He was standing at the corner of the mortuary table, scant inches from Mr Frohman's bald pate. I jerked my head by way of indication, and said, "You may want to stand back a little – this is liable to get messy."

  Ethan took a big step back, and I drew in a deep, halting breath. Truth is, I didn't know if this'd work. I'd never done anything like this before – as far as I knew, no one had. But hell, a bad plan is better than no plan at all, right?

  In one swift motion, I grabbed the soul from the fabric upon which it sat, and plunged it into Mr Frohman's meaty chest. For a brief moment, I was engulfed in a swirl of light and sound. Then the Frohman body gasped, and the world came rushing back.

  The wooly mammoth of a man sat up, his eyes wide, his limbs flailing madly. Then he doubled over and puked. Ethan let out a whimper, and crumpled to the tiles. That made twice in two days. Still, you couldn't really blame him. At least this guy he managed not to cut.

  Frohman/Varela's eyes were wild, panicked. His massive chest heaved as it sucked in breath after labored breath. His neck craned as he took in the scene around him: me, standing over him, expectant; Ethan, lying unconscious on the floor; him, draped in white as he floundered on a stainless steel slab. Despite myself, I felt a stab of pity for him – as I well know, that first wake-up is pretty damn traumatic. But when he decided it was time to flee, my sympathy evaporated.

  I had to give it to him – for a big guy, the man could move. He rolled away from me, the sheet falling from him as his feet hit the floor on the far side of the slab. He got halfway to the door before his limbs gave out on him. It's always that way with a fledgling meat-suit – it takes a while for the body to acquiesce to your commands. And never more so than your first time out, which is why I didn't even bother giving chase.

  The big man hit the tiles with a fwap, and I was on him in seconds. I rolled him over with a nudge of my shoe, and slapped the look of blind panic from his face.

  "¿Habla ingles?" I asked him, but he just let out a wail of confusion and panic.

  "¿Habla ingles?" I repeated. "¿Como te llamas?"

  He blurted out a couple nonsense syllables as he struggled with his unfamiliar meat-suit. Then he squinched his eyes and shook his head as if to clear it. I cocked my hand back to slap him a second time. It seemed to do the trick. He grabbed my wrist with one sausage-fingered hand to still the coming blow, and, anger glinting in his eyes, he finally found his voice.

  "Listen, asshole, I don't speak Mexican, so slapping me ain't gonna help! You try that shit again, you're liable to lose your fucking hand, comprende?"

  I stared at him a second, dumbfounded. "You speak English?"

  "That a trick question? Yeah, dipshit – I speak English."

  "I'm guessing your name isn't Pablo Varela then, huh?"

  "Wow, a gold star for the good guesser."

  "So who the hell are you?"

  "Why the fuck should I tell you?"

  I plunged my free hand into his chest and gave his soul a twist. The big man's face contorted in fear and pain, and reflexively, he released my wrist from his grasp.

  "'Cause I'm the guy who rescued you from oblivion – and if you don't start talking, I'm the guy who'll send you back."

  "Jesus, dude – that fucking hurts. You try that voodoo shit again, I'm gonna break your fucking face."

  Sure, his words were plenty tough, but they were betrayed by the frightened look in his eyes.

  "Really? That's the way you wanna play it? Me, I'd prefer to keep this all friendly-like, but you want to play the bad-ass, be my guest – we'll see how far it gets you."

  I drove my fingers into his chest once more. This time, he tried to fight, but it wasn't any use – with his soul held tight inside my fist, his borrowed body wouldn't listen. Once his thrashing died down, I let him go. He collapsed back onto the tiles, sweating and exhausted.

  "Gio," he said, sucking wind. "My name is Gio."

  At that, I deflated a little. I don't know what I was hoping for – some kind of clue, I guess, as to what Danny was up to – but the name meant nothing to me. "Tell me, Gio," I said, sighing, "you got a last name?"

  "Gio is my last name. My first name's Francis, but nobody calls me that but my mother."

  Suddenly, the pieces fell into place. "Gio," I said. "As in, short for Giordano?"

  "That's right," he said, eyeing me with sudden suspicion. "How the hell'd you know that?"

  I thought back to my meeting with Danny, to the sob-story he'd spun about his missing soul. "The bloke was a mob enforcer
out of Vegas by the name of Giordano," he'd said. "Only now his soul is missing. Stolen right out from under me." But that wasn't exactly true, now, was it? Turns out, Danny had Giordano's soul the whole time. Which meant the whole fucking meeting was nothing but an elaborate bait-and-switch. He must've figured that when I buried Giordano's soul, his Deliverants would be appeased, and he could go about his merry way with his stolen Varela, leaving me to twist in the wind. But why? What in the hell could he possibly want with Varela's soul? And more importantly, how the hell was I going to get it back?

  "Hey, buddy," Gio said, "you still there?"

  "What?" I said, snapping out of my reverie. "Yeah. I'm still here." For now, I added mentally – because once my superiors caught wind of the fact that I'd lost Varela's soul, they were going to shelve me for sure. Which meant I had to find that soul, and fast.

  "You wanna tell me how you knew my name?"

  "I know your name because I heard it from the guy who was sent to kill you."

  "This guy," he asked, his face clouded with sudden anger, "he a friend of yours?"

  "He was," I said.

  "Yeah? The way you say that, it don't sound like you and him are very buddy-buddy now."

  "No," I said, "it really doesn't."

  "Well, it's a shame for him he missed me, 'cause now that fucker's gonna hafta pay."