I’m not quite sure how many times I’ve apologized to Ulie, and in the past couple of weeks, I’m positive he’s put on a doggie pound or two from all the treats I’ve been giving him.
He’s fine around me, because I’m the one and only Foodbringer. I’m the Light of His Life. I’m the One with the Stick. I am the Thrower of All Things.
I am Pillow. I am Chew Toy. I am He Who Takes Me for a Run Sometimes.
I am also He Who Will Never Leave My Dog Alone Again. Unless he’s with Melanie.
He gets slightly skittish when I come into the room unannounced, but other than that, we’re best buds. When we venture outside the house, it’s elderly ladies that spook him the most. Can you blame him?
We’ve been going to a dog park down the street while I slowly try to reintroduce him to the outside world, away from the security-blanket comfort of his cozy bed in the corner of my living room. He does fine until the little old ladies with their yippy growlers try to come over and see if he wants to make friends with whatever puffball abomination they’re dragging around on the end of a leash.
I make up excuses for Ulie, tell them that he’s just super shy around other dogs. There would be no conceivable way to explain the following: “He’s wary around wrinkly old ladies like you because he thinks you’re going to eat his soul for breakfast.”
One thing that’s puzzled me since I had my revelation about Lauren Coeburn is the fact that animals are supposed to be sensitive to the supernatural. Ulie should have been able to pick up on something as soon as she and Grandma Death Eyes walked into my condo. I have no reasonable explanation for why he didn’t. The only thing I can assume is that the entity piloting a black-eyed person has evolved beyond nature, and is undetectable by standard methods like doggie intuition. It can lie dormant until it’s time to act. If it doesn’t have an objective, then it’ll emerge once it’s sapped the available energy from its current host and needs to feed.
Ford, I’m hungry.
You need to let me in.
I can’t blame Ulie. I like to think of myself as sensitive to the spirit world. Perhaps not as much as an animal’s innate abilities, but regardless, I missed it too.
I still get shivers thinking about Lauren being that close to me and how close I came to having my soul devoured.
That would’ve sucked.
I stayed in Newport for another three days working with Detectives Carson and Jaynes, trying to explain to them everything I knew about black-eyed children, which wasn’t much. I speculated enough to write a book.
We read report after report online, emailed witnesses and had web chats with those willing to talk to us. It was the same thing, every single time.
No, they didn’t let them in.
No, they didn’t have proof.
Yes, they were absolutely positive of what they had seen.
They weren’t able to uncover the identity of those poor boys either. There were no fingerprint matches in the national records, no DNA, no dental records. Nothing. Nor were there pictures of missing children that matched. Some came close. Dark hair, light skin, thin builds, but nothing definitive. It was odd that they didn’t exist anywhere, and when I suggested that perhaps there was a mother unit somewhere pumping out fleshy shells to be used as cute and approachable hosts, Detective Carson lifted his palm and said, “I can’t take any more, Ford. This shit’s all too weird for me. We’ll take it from here. You go on home, get some rest. But, hey, keep your phone handy. We might stumble across something else.”
So here I am. I gave Jesse some time off. He wanted to leave Albuquerque for a while anyway and do some traveling, and I told him to go before life and his own demons got in the way.
I’ve been ignoring calls from unrecognized numbers, letting them go to voicemail, which is how I know that Carla Hancock has been blowing up my phone.
In a rare move for the cutthroat she-devil, she apologizes again and again for issuing the press release and announcing my commitment to the documentary before getting the official okay from me. Still, she wants to know if I’ve made a decision. The numbers she offers for my involvement get higher with each successive call. Why bother telling her that, for me, it’s not about the money?
Although, I do enjoy listening to her voice get that tiny hint of desperation each time she raises her bid.
I’ve been resting, answering emails, and filing away the raciest picks from the spotcamgirls under a new folder called “Mom’s Cornbread Recipe.”
I’m not entirely sure why I do that since it’s just me living here, and it’s not like I’m going to corrupt Ulie’s young mind if he goes snooping around my laptop.
Well, yeah, I do know why. I scared Melanie so much that night, she’s been coming around to check on us. She brings meals for me and rawhide bones for Ulie. She stays a little longer each time, and it could be because Jeff from the control room is no longer in the picture.
Ironically enough, he was too controlling.
I’m not getting my hopes up, but we even had lasagna together the other night and watched a rerun of Yes, Chef! on that twenty-four hour food network. It was the one where Dakota Bailey concocted a ham and peach tart so amazing that it made the bald judge get up from his little table of superiority and shake her hand.
And speaking of Dakota Bailey, that thing with Mike?
Dude.
***
The very first news I heard about his situation came by way of Glenda Harrison, that “nothing but the hard facts!” lady on one of the political news channels. You know the one. She pounds the desk and yells at people when she thinks they’re lying to her—that one.
I was still in Newport and had moved from the contaminated condo to a cheap hotel room. I’d had a long day of talking to witnesses, so I ended up mindlessly flipping through channels when I heard this:
“Tonight! More news from Graveyard: Classified. Are the famous paranormal superstars possessed, or simply cursed with bad luck?”
There was some mention of my state of affairs. Evidently an anonymous source had leaked news to the media that I’d had a lover’s quarrel with Lauren Coeburn while on a secret celebrity retreat to the Oregon coast. I left her behind and she proceeded to get high on whatever designer drugs she had available, had a violent reaction, went batshit crazy, and essentially committed “suicide by cop.”
(The “official” autopsy report stated that it was a rare biochemical reaction that affected the nervous system. In addition to that, we were ridiculously lucky in the fact that Lauren had designated that she wanted her eyes donated to science, given Ellen’s blindness. That solved the lack-of-eyeballs thing before Carson and Jaynes had her body shipped back to L.A.)
Lover’s quarrel. Abandoned Lauren.
Screw Glenda Harrison.
I flipped a cheap chair and the pathetic coffee table in the hotel room, and thought about suing Glenda Harrison from here to the end of time. But then, she commended me for keeping cool and calm in such an unfortunate situation.
If she only knew.
Also, thankfully, whoever leaked the news had graciously decided to leave out the bit about the hollowed out shells of two former black-eyed children.
That whole case is going so deep into the file room that they’ll need an archeologist to find it.
I owe Carson and Jaynes, big time.
And then, Mike.
Man, I didn’t even know what to think when I first heard it.
I was stunned.
Since I had been so involved with the detectives and Lauren’s situation, I hadn’t been online. Nobody had said anything to me either. How and why someone at the station failed to mention it is beyond me, and I can only assume that Carson and Jaynes kept the information from me so I would be able to focus on helping them.
In the video—the one being broadcast everywhere—even with the green hue of night vision, accompanied by an incredible zoom feature, you can plainly see that it’s none other than Dakota Bailey. She’s running across the second-level dec
k of her beachfront mansion, pursued by my friend, partner, and brother-in-life, Mike ‘The Exterminator’ Long.
Mike grabs her, forces a kiss. The low wall blocks what happens below their waists, but based on his reaction, her knee goes up to his crotch, giving her a long second to break free. He grabs for her again, she spins, delivers an elbow, and my buddy drops like his parachute failed to open.
The video already had two million hits before the national media began to get wind of it.
“And get this, folks,” Glenda Harrison said, “Miss Bailey must be a saint, because she’s not pressing charges. What’s the world coming to? I don’t know about you, but I’m not buying that whole ‘he was possessed’ excuse for a second.”
Then, for the next two weeks, since I left Newport and came home, Mike has been getting drawn and quartered all over the place. Social media, nightly news, cable shows filled with talking heads, all of them talking about how fame and fading stardom can do strange things to people. This was despite Dakota’s best efforts to dampen the critics’ fire. Interview after interview, she defends him and insists that she bears no ill will toward Mike Long, that it wasn’t his fault, and that she had enlisted his help to eliminate the evil spirit in her home. If anything, he should be labeled a hero for facing down such a sinister entity.
Mike’s only saving grace has been the fact that he has fought demons in the past, possibly adding a hint of credibility to Dakota’s story.
It doesn’t change the fact that there are plenty of grievances, people griping online, asking, “Why is she protecting him?”
I hate it for him. I really do. I know what it’s like to be the target of such vitriol.
And yet, maybe now he can understand what I went through with the aftermath of Chelsea’s incident.
The craziest thing is, I was positive this shit would put a big fat damper on the documentary. We would be able to move on, and I’d have to find some other way to protect Chelsea from Boogerface.
Instead, I’m going to postulate that it increased the interest for a reunion by about seventeen million percent, which has doubled the calls from Carla, and brought even more attention to Mike, Dakota, and the video captured by that damn peeping tom.
The teen jerkhole is eating it up, by the way, making the rounds on the interview circuit. I heard he reportedly got a six-figure offer to do his own reality series. When will it ever end?
I’ve tried to call Mike. Cell, home, his former agent, Dakota’s agent, mine, even Father Duke, but he’s not answering, and nobody knows how to get in touch with him. I did get a note from a fan who insists she saw him at a gas station in Kansas. Throughout the day, three more emails arrived from fans in the same town. They all wanted to know what was up with Mike, why was he in Kansas, and asked if I would be willing to tell them.
So, at least he’s alive. If I can’t get in touch with him within the next couple of days, I’m calling in a private investigator to track him down. Less attention that way.
Bottom line is, for now, I’m in the clear and Mike’s not.
It’s strange being on this side of things.
***
I’m putting the finishing touches on my world-famous mushroom bacon burgers out on the deck when I hear the faint ding-dong of my doorbell.
Curious, but not curious enough to go rushing for the door, I take my time, wiping my hands as I stroll in from outside, through the living room and kitchen, up the elevated flooring, and then past the library and bathroom. It might be Melanie, though she hadn’t mentioned that she would be coming by.
I open the door to find Mike looking like he’s been living under a bridge for about five years. He has dark bags under his eyes, scruffy cheeks, about a week’s worth of stubble on his normally shaved head, and plenty of stains on a plain white t-shirt. His shorts are wrinkled. One sneaker is untied.
“Mike! You’re alive.”
“Hey, Ford.”
“The fuck have you been, man? I’ve been trying to call you for days. Get in here.”
Mike nods and steps inside, rubs his hands together and looks around. “I like what you’ve done to the place.”
“No bullshit small talk. We’re heading straight for the alcohol because you look like you need a beer. Actually, I should say you look like you need another beer. Maybe something stronger? Whiskey?”
Mike follows me, saying, “I’m fine, Ford. I already got one mama.”
He leans up against the kitchen counter while I pull a local-brew lager from the refrigerator and pop the top off. He takes it, salutes me, and gulps a long pull from the bottle.
I ask, “How you holding up?”
Burp. “Been better.”
I want to ask him a million questions, but I don’t know where to start. I do know Mike, and if the past two weeks haven’t completely changed him as a human being, he’ll get around to the details when he damn well pleases.
He takes another pull from the bottle and then examines the label. “That’ll put some hair on your chest, huh? Not like I need it.”
I grab one for myself. “So.”
“So.”
I chuckle and nonchalantly ask, “Anything new?”
I feel like he’s going to hold out on me. He’ll keep his chin up and chest out, we might skirt some details, and then I’ll get some truth out of him later once I’ve gotten him hammered.
Nope.
Without warning, and totally unlike Mike ‘The Exterminator’ Long, he sets his beer on the counter, hangs his head, and opens the floodgates. Shoulders bobbing, tears streaking down his cheeks, mouth twisted sideways in abject anguish.
Holy shit, that’s an ugly cry if I’ve ever seen one.
It makes my heart ache. “Aw, buddy,” I say, moving over to him.
Nobody ever said that bromances couldn’t involve hugs. I put my arms around Mike’s shoulders and pull him in, letting him rest his forehead on my collarbone. “It’s gonna be fine, dude. If anybody can sympathize over what this feels like, then you’re snotting all over his shirt. It sucks balls, big hairy ones, and it feels like someone is squeezing your lungs every time you take a breath, but it’ll pass. It really will.”
We hold that pose until his sobbing subsides, and then he pulls away, gently headbutting my clavicle a couple of times in bro-like acknowledgement. He gives me an embarrassed grin and wipes his cheeks. “I don’t know how you handled it for so long. I’m sorry, man. I…”
“You don’t have anything to apologize for.”
“It felt good to let that go.”
“Always does.”
“Do I smell burgers?”
“Yeah. But you’ll have to fight Ulie for the second one.”
And that’s the end of the Time That Mike Long Cried.
We eat. We chat. We get slightly buzzed on what few beers I have. He declines when I suggest that I could call a delivery service. “Too tired,” he says. “I’ll be out by sundown. You know how long the fucking drive is out here?”
I learn that Toni has been cheating on him—I’m not surprised—and yet, she’ll get anything he has left because of the video. He’s positive of that. He compliments Dakota and her resolve; he says that they had a little talk before he left.
“She’s amazing, and it’ll be good,” he says, “one of these days. But now it’s weird, you know? For me, I mean. Seeing myself in that video, remembering the things I saw while that fucker was inside of me. I need to cleanse myself first. I feel dirty.”
“What’d you see?” I ask.
“Hell. I literally saw what hell looks like. Black fire. Screaming souls. What everybody imagines, you know? I don’t know if maybe I was recreating an image I’d seen before in my mind, but goddamn, did it ever feel real.”
I’ve been holding onto this for a couple of hours now, figuring I should wait for the right time. I tell him about Lauren Coeburn and the black-eyed children. I tell him what the Lauren Thing said to me right before I jammed a fireplace poker through its neck.
Here it is. Here’s the true reveal. What’s behind the secret door?
“Let’s do it, Mike.”
“Do what?”
“The documentary. I’m in.”
I thought he would’ve been more excited. Instead, he continues to peel the label off his beer bottle. “A week ago, I would’ve kissed you on the lips. But now? Sure, if that’s what you want. Let’s fight the bastard and be done with this shit.”
“That’s the plan. It’s all about Chelsea now. I can’t believe I’m actually going to give Carla Hancock what she wants, but we have to protect Chelsea. That’s priority number one, no matter what. Priority number two—now that we both could use a little redemption in the eyes of God and everybody underneath him, let’s kick some demon ass and ride off into the sunset like heroes.”
“Win and walk away?”
I nod. “Win and walk away.”
We shake on it, and I take the opportunity to rub the scruff on his head. “What in the hell is up with your hair? Looks like somebody got after a pair of bull’s balls with a set of dull clippers.”
“Hey, don’t knock it. I’m trying something new.”
Later, we move into the living room and flop down on the couch on opposite ends. The TV goes on, and I hurriedly flip through the channels, careful to avoid anything that might be talking about Mike and that damn video.
I settle on yet another rerun of Yes, Chef!, this one also featuring Dakota—it seems like they all do—and it’s one I haven’t seen before.
Mike says, “Watch what she does with this porterhouse, Ford. She could make a grown man weep for joy.” I look over at him and watch the corners of his mouth pull up into a soft smile, flush with pride and admiration. “She’s a magician. It’s like she’s David Copperfield with a filet knife.”
Nice.
It’s good to see him on the other side.
And by that I mean the right side of happiness.
The White Night Page 22
