by Gwynn White
“Mrs. Jones?” She tapped the door. “Hello?”
The couches were still buried with scarves, the curtain blocking more light than before. She tugged it aside, letting the last remains of a gray day into the room. A dusty haze of cat odor swirled in the dull sunbeam.
“Mrs. Jones?”
Something was off, something strange. Sunny had never noticed Mrs. Jones across the hall until now, but the apartment looked twenty years lived-in. The smell of microwave popcorn was still fresh. Why did she leave the café so suddenly? Where the hell are all the cats?
The kitchen was empty, the counters cluttered with dirty dishes. The bathroom was open, the shower curtain pulled aside. The bedroom was infested with knickknacks, the sort that filled resale shops and rummage sales, dusty trinkets and empty picture frames.
Sunny hesitated in the bedroom. She was stepping up her invasion of privacy, peering around the old woman’s inner sanctum without her consent. She told herself she was concerned, that something wasn’t right. The old woman had left the café so suddenly and the door was open.
The cats were missing, too. Maybe that was the weirdness: the dead silence hanging on the walls. Litter boxes were in the bedroom with wet spots and piles of buried treasures. The smell of ammonia watered her eyes. She pinched her nose, holding back a sneeze.
The nightstand was crowded with silk kerchiefs and knitted scarves, a box of cheap sunglasses, more empty picture frames, and a pair of scissors. Several paper dolls were folded and propped around an alarm clock like marching soldiers. Instead of two legs, they had three. When she wasn’t knitting, she must have been cutting these weird little things to keep her company. More had fallen on the floor; others were randomly placed on the dresser and bookshelf, little tripod paper dolls with flat arms wide and waiting for a hug.
There were at least a hundred of them.
Sunny couldn’t remember who lived in that apartment before Mrs. Jones. They were shut-ins, as far as she could tell. And it appeared Mrs. Jones moved into their clutter. Maybe they were family. I should leave now.
There were photos taped on the dresser mirror. Sunny was drawn in for a closer look. She breathed through her damp shirt, her own body odor wafting out. Pictures were taped on top of pictures, a photo album circling the perimeter of the mirror. Her reflection approached the center.
She had a son, so Sunny assumed she was married. Very few of the photos, however, included people. They were mostly shots of landscapes, spectacular views at nightfall or birds in flight. She didn’t recognize any of the locations, certainly not tourist attractions but stunning nonetheless.
She was quite a photographer-turned-paper-doll maker.
Only one photo had people. It was in the upper right corner of the mirror. It was at a state park. There was a waterfall in the background and the faint glimmer of a rainbow rising from the mist. Sunny knew where it was because she had taken a photo just like that, had set up a tripod and tripped a timer. She ripped it off the mirror.
That’s Grey.
He was standing on an iron-stained boulder with his thumbs wedged under his backpack. He was ten years old. A woman was behind him, hands on his shoulders, a spontaneous peekaboo moment. Her hair was strawberry, down to her shoulders. That was before she started cutting it.
What the hell?
Sunny had used her photo as a screensaver for a long time. It was her favorite, a digital photo she never printed, but here it was on Mrs. Jones’s mirror. It was even an old print with worn edges, the kind that looked developed from film.
There was a noise.
“Mrs. Jones?” Sunny held the photo.
The front room was still empty. No cats. Just the stink of them. The noise came from the hall. She pressed her eye to the peephole.
Her heart punched against her breastplate.
A man in a black coat went into her apartment, closing the door behind him. His face was partially obscured.
Sunny slid the lock on Mrs. Jones’s door in place.
She would wait for her to return and ask her to explain the photo. Maybe the old woman was taking her trash down to the chute.
With all her cats.
A wristwatch dragged her awake.
Sunny woke on the same couch she had slept on the previous time. She stared at the ceiling, searching for her name and then the day of the week. The days bled like watercolors. She pushed all the buttons on the wristwatch to make the alarm stop. The masking tape Grey had wrapped around it was curled on the edges. For mom had faded. The buttons were so tiny and complicated. Every night it went off.
Outside, the silence was complete, the city still asleep. The beeping finally stopped.
“Where’d you come from?” She reached down for a purring Siamese cat. “Mrs. Jones?”
The cat trotted toward the kitchen. Sunny checked the bedroom. The bed was still empty and the paper dolls standing guard. A hole in the grouping of photos reflected her tired eyes. Sunny remembered the man sneaking into her apartment across the hall. She’d stood at the peephole, waiting for him to leave, waiting for a chance to see his face. Eventually, she’d grown tired and lay on the couch, listening for the door across the hall to open.
The Siamese was calling.
Empty bowls were under the kitchen table. Sunny went through the cabinets. The cat pawed at the one below the sink. A bag of dry food was rolled up next to a jar of popcorn.
The cat food smelled good. How long has it been since I’ve eaten? The refrigerator was stocked with expired milk and thick orange juice. The cheese was moldy. She was afraid to crack an egg.
A box of granola bars was in the pantry.
The cat rubbed against her legs as she finished off a third bar, chasing it with water. She was fully aware that she had snuck into her neighbor’s apartment and slept on her couch and was now eating her food and feeding her cat. Mrs. Jones would understand. She’d lost a son.
But how did she get that photo?
Sunny felt better, less shaky. The sleep helped. And this apartment felt like the only safe place in the world. Slowly chewing the last couple of bites, she savored the sweetness, feeling the fullness, staring at a magnetic yellow flower on the refrigerator. The petals were plastic, the edges curling on a dry-erase whiteboard.
Shaky lines were scrawled in red.
WHO ARE YOU?
WHERE ARE YOU?
AND WHY?
That was familiar.
Mrs. Jones had said that in the café, the three questions that needed to be answered in order to escape the Maze. Did she say to escape the Maze?
Something else, though. She’d dreamed those questions, too, dreamed of actually writing those words. Sunny could see her hand, the skin was spotted and knuckles knobby as her crooked fingers gripped the marker in a fist.
There was a number on the board.
She took the last bite, the food turning stiff in her mouth. It was a familiar ten-digit number. She had dialed it before, and that wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t Grey’s phone number, not Henk’s. She hardly remembered phone numbers since they were programmed into her phone, but this one she had dialed before. She found the corded phone and punched the numbers. It rang three times.
“Welcome to Hadron Technology. If you’d like to continue in English, press or say one.”
The phone slipped down her cheek. What was that number doing here? Was this the mystery caller that had told her to leave the apartment the first time?
“If you’d like to continue in English—”
“One.”
“Thank you. Your call is important to us. Please listen to the following menu items, or say your extension at any time.”
“Fabrication.”
Pause. “Hold, please.”
A dull silence filled the phone. The Siamese purred against her leg, arching her back. Sunny stared at the dry-erase board.
Who am I? Where am I? And why?
Tears filled her eyes that refused to blink, a thousand questions pryin
g them open, but one rose above all the others.
Why the hell is my employer’s phone number on Mrs. Jones’s refrigerator?
Maybe they were looking for her at work and left a message. But why call Mrs. Jones? How would they know her? Unless it was the same person from the first time, the one she said sounded from far away. But none of that made sense.
Nonsense was the only constant in her life.
The silence stretched out. It was taking too long. Maybe she shouldn’t be calling. The man in the black coat might still be in her apartment. Did he have Mrs. Jones? The phone number was just a—
“Dawkins,” someone said.
Sunny stared at the phone like a tongue darted out. She almost dropped the phone.
“Hello?” Dawkins grumbled.
“Um.” She held the receiver to her mouth. The words wouldn’t come out. She swallowed hard, cleared her throat, took a deep breath and pushed. “Is… Donny there?”
Dawkins didn’t recognize her voice. He distantly mumbled to someone. For a moment, she thought he forgot she was on the line or was about to hang up. There was laughter, the scratch of whiskers against the phone.
“Donny punched out early,” he said. “He just left.”
The phone hit the floor.
14
Hunter
After the Punch
Hunter made a run for the car.
Something warm and salty spread across his lips. His nose was leaking. He leaned back and pinched his nostrils, blood clotting in his sinuses. He’d never had a nosebleed before. But he was older now and things were changing.
For better or worse.
The car carried him across the city. Hunter wiped his bloody fingers on his wet socks where his pants would hide the stains. It was the best he could do. His destination, blurred in the downpour, was approaching. The driver pulled up to the curb on the one-way street.
“Can you drop me off on that side?” Hunter asked.
“No.”
“Go around the block and try again, I’ll pay extra.”
“You get out now.”
Someone was waiting for the door to open. She had an umbrella.
“Give me a second.”
He didn’t need the time, just wanted to stick it to the driver, who would be warm and dry in this little sweatbox for the remainder of the day while Hunter marinated in wet underwear.
He leaned back to apply a few eyedrops. They were always dry after a long night facedown. His body had essentially shut down for twelve hours. A reboot. He blinked, tears streaming.
“Get out now,” the driver said.
Hunter stiffed him on the tip.
He jumped around the woman and hid in the doorway to a café and adjusted a water-resistant stocking cap to keep his head dry as well as hide it. The fewer questions about the scar, the fewer distractions there would be.
Across the street, a big window was brightly lit. Someone was inside, an elderly woman with a peach-colored sweater. She was slightly hunched, her back to the window.
Hunter had an appointment.
In fact, he was late. The person he’d spoken to sounded much younger than the peach-sweater woman. If he was waiting for a break in the weather, he would miss his appointment altogether. This city was going in the ocean and he wanted to get out before it hit the bottom.
By the time he crossed the street, his shoes were filled with dirty water. He pulled the glass door open. The room was quiet. The steady drip from his sleeves filled the silence. The floor space was wide open; product displays were along two walls. There was no reception desk or cashier.
The old woman was gone.
She had exited through the door in the back wall. A shiver ran up his back and lingered in his neck. For a moment, the back of his head quivered all the way to his forehead. The scar hidden beneath his stocking cap stung for a brief second, a quick stab from an imaginary needle.
That happened from time to time. A phantom jab would pierce the dormant stent whenever a memory was jarred loose. Maybe it was the technology that reminded him of the Foreverland days. Or the peculiar smell. Although he couldn’t recall anything that smelled like that in Foreverland.
A polished steel stand was a few steps inside the door. It displayed a stack of postcards. Ivory white, the address was embossed in the center. It resembled the minimalist décor. A tagline was stenciled below it.
Find a way to please yourself.
The door opened. Instead of a peach-sweater grandmother, a slender woman in heels crossed the room with quick, hard steps. She carried a bone-white towel that contrasted with her ebony skin.
“My apologies for the delay, Mr. Hunter.”
She spoke with a South African accent that was sophisticated and alluring. He immediately wanted to listen to her, let the words softly fill him, as if just hearing them would lift his social status. She handed him the towel.
“You must hate our city. May I take your coat?”
“I’m fine. Thank you.”
A puddle had formed around him. He wiped his face and adjusted the stocking cap. She stood back while he wiped down the sleeves. Her smile was bright red and plump. Her eyes, chocolate. Hair closely cropped. Her smell was melodic.
“You mind?” He gestured to the stand of cards.
“Be my guest.”
“These are business cards?”
“More like brochures.”
He flipped it over, studying the random pattern of black lines, an explosion of ink. “Doesn’t tell me much.”
“It says everything it needs to.” A slight turn of her head, a devious smile. “Take two. You might need them.”
Hunter slid a pair inside his overcoat and looked around the sparse line of products. “Commercial minimalism. Don’t see that much these days.”
“Simplicity, Mr. Hunter. We believe the most elegant products are quite simple.”
“And who are we?”
“This.”
“What do you call this?”
The devilish smile returned, painted red. She walked around the room, heels clapping, calves flexing beneath smooth and shiny flesh. She called out the products with a thick accent while he stayed put, following her legs.
“What are you lacking, Mr. Hunter?”
“What?”
“Our mission is to enhance the human experience. What are you lacking that we may enhance?” She spread her toned arms.
“Dry socks.”
“Maybe if you found the joy of having wet feet, you would not be lacking.”
“Says the person with dry feet.”
“Change what you believe, Mr. Hunter, and reality transforms.”
“Reality is relative?”
“We perceive what we believe.”
“And if we don’t believe?”
She strode diagonally across the room, legs crossing in runway fashion, arms swinging. Eyes daring. Hunter had not moved from his puddle. He’d seen products like these; they were nothing special. And that was the problem. Anyone could purchase this online. Why all the pretense?
“Problems don’t exist, Mr. Hunter.” Her scent wrapped around him, the allure of oils, a touch of pheromones.
“Tell my ex-wife.”
“You’re not married?”
“I come with baggage.”
“You appear to pack light.”
He handed back the towel, trying to suppress a smile. He wasn’t accustomed to a come-on. Not particularly a handsome man, lacking game, he always settled for whomever was willing to talk to him when the party was over. And he didn’t go to many parties.
“Are we flirting?”
“I’m being friendly, Mr. Hunter. Are you?”
Her smile said otherwise. If she was friendly, it had benefits. She draped the towel over her forearm.
“I’m investigating a Maze incident. Believe it or not, it’s led me here.”
“I am aware of your intentions, Mr. Hunter.”
“You are?”
�
�You’ve been with the FBI most of your life. A career man.”
“Very good. How many years, exactly?”
“Twenty-seven.”
Hunter frowned. “You investigate all your appointments?”
“We’re quite thorough, Mr. Hunter.”
“We?”
“Do you know where you are, Mr. Hunter?”
“What did I have for breakfast?”
“A bagel and orange juice.”
He stiffened. Twenty-seven years with the FBI wasn’t hard to find on the Internet. A crafty middle schooler could learn that. But breakfast?
She began laughing, a melodic chortle that sang off the walls. When an uncharacteristic snort erupted from her slender nose, she covered her mouth and smiled with her eyes, undress me stenciled around the pupils.
“You’re staying in a hotel, Mr. Hunter. I assumed you ate the complimentary breakfast and there aren’t many options. Bagel was a high-percentage guess, you see.”
“Sunny Grimm came to your business,” he deadpanned. “She said you could help her, that her son had used a punch to awareness leap and suspected it might be Maze related.”
“That is true.”
“Why do you think someone sent her here?”
“I’m afraid I won’t be of much help, Mr. Hunter. You already know everything. She arrived hysterical, said the Maze emblem was on the punch. I feared for her safety and suggested she report this to the police. There was no one in her apartment, I’m told. I’m afraid she may have suffered from schizophrenia.”
“I’m sorry, did she pass away?”
Her smile faltered. “Not that I’m aware of.”
“It’s just, you used past tense.”
“It was unintentional, Mr. Hunter.”
“How did you know her son was not in the apartment?”
“The police came to us. They asked questions. Perhaps you should talk with them. They will be of more help than we are, I’m afraid.”
“I thought you would know I already talked to them.”
“Perhaps I do.” She winked playfully.
“Who is Micah?”
“There is no Micah.”
