by Sean Platt
The door opened. Paola fell back two of the stairs.
“You?”
* * * *
CHAPTER 6 — Edward Keenan
Avondale, New York
It took nearly seven hours to drive from Manhattan to the Canadian border where Ed had a safe house nestled in the tiny town of Avondale.
They arrived at night. Ed stopped the car in front of a diner and turned to Brent and Ben in the back seat. “I want you guys to go inside and eat. I’ll head to the house on foot. If I’m not back in an hour, things went bad. Take the car and go.”
“Then what?” Brent asked. “Where do we go? Who do we trust?”
“I don’t know,” Ed said, wishing he had a better answer. “Find somewhere safe and live off-grid. Use false names. No phones, no Internet except in public places, and nothing that can be used to trace you specifically. Don’t give the government anything they can use to track you. Hell, you’re resourceful, Brent. I’m sure you’ll manage. I’ve got some cash in an envelope in the trunk. If I don’t come back take it. Use it to set yourself up somewhere.”
“Do you think they’re waiting for you here? Do you think it’s a trap?”
“Only one way to know,” Ed said. He got out of the car, grabbed a bag from the back seat, stashed with weapons taken from one of the Black Island vans before leaving the city.
“Be careful,” Brent said.
Ed looked at his watch and made sure the time matched the car’s — two minutes off at 8:20 p.m. “It’s 8:20. If I’m not back by 9:20 p.m., get out of here. Got it?”
“Yes,” Brent nodded. “And thanks … for coming back.”
“Yeah,” Ed said, wanting to add that he wished he’d come sooner, but knew it wasn’t necessary.
He left Brent and his son, attempting to stitch their family of two together in the long shadow of Gina’s death.
**
The girls’ car was in the driveway and lights were on behind the blinds: good signs, though far from any sort of guarantee.
Ed slowly walked the roadside, like a neighbor strolling, carrying a big bag of weapons. He’d thrown a red and blue Bills jacket over his Black Island Guardsman shirt and Kevlar vest, though he didn’t bother to disguise his black pants or boots.
So far, Ed had only passed a handful of people. He pretended to be on his phone to avoid conversations and eye contact. So far, none of the people he passed seemed like agents of either Black Island or his former agency, and he saw no sign of surveillance vehicles.
If Ed was stepping into a trap, it was the most low-profile trap he’d ever seen.
Ed passed his daughter’s house once, keeping an eye on the blinds to see if they fluttered. They didn’t. He also watched the neighboring houses and cars in the driveways. Four of the five closest houses had lights on inside, two with curtains or blinds drawn. One house was dark, which could have meant his enemy waited there, or, just as likely, nobody was home or already asleep.
Ed kept walking to the corner, then turned down a side street to head back up the next block. He would hit his daughter’s house from the back, cutting through neighboring lawns.
Ed found the third house from the end of the street and cut through the yard, approaching Jade’s from behind. The rear had a back door and kitchen window that looked into the yard. Both had curtains drawn over their windows.
He looked back to see the house that backed up to Jade’s, two stories, also lit with shades drawn. No one could see him unless there was someone upstairs in one of the darkened windows looking down. If that was so, there was nothing Ed could do to stay invisible, except hope for the best and prepare for an ambush.
Gun in hand, he approached the back of Jade’s house, ears perked. He heard the faint sound of a television, but not the girls or Becca. Maybe Becca was already in bed, and the girls were relaxing, watching the glow.
Ed grabbed his phone again and dialed Jade.
He couldn’t hear it ringing inside the house, and she wasn’t answering.
Ed softly reached for the knob on the back door, not sure what to expect. He was surprised when it twisted in his hand.
No way they leave their back door unlocked!
My daughter isn’t that stupid.
Rather than step through the doorway, Ed fell back, reconsidering his next move. A gun pressed to his head.
Shit.
“We’ve been waiting for you,” Sullivan’s voice said from behind. “Drop the bag, and your gun.”
“You better not have hurt my family,” Ed said, dropping both gun and bag of weapons to the cold ground.
“Inside,” Sullivan said, pushing the gun against Ed’s head for emphasis.
Ed began calculating escape the second he felt the muzzle pressed to his head. There were ways to counter your enemy, distract them, gain the upper hand and wrest the weapon away, even when the gun was barrel to head. However, there were too many variables, chiefly what kind of backup Sullivan had behind him. There was also the question of whether the girls were a) still alive or b) still here. Maybe they’d already been taken off site, which meant Ed’s escape would bring him no closer.
He had to assume that Sullivan didn’t want him dead, or he would’ve simply shot him. So Ed would play — for now.
He stepped into the house, relieved to see Jade and Teagan sitting on the sofa, surprisingly not bound or gagged.
“Daddy!” Jade said, looking like she wanted to jump from the couch.
“It’s going to be OK,” Ed said to the girls, both crying. “Where’s Becca?”
Teagan said, “Upstairs, sleeping.”
Ed tried to divine their stress level from expression, body language, and voices, hoping to determine what Sullivan had done or threatened already. They were scared, but didn’t seem traumatized.
“Have a seat with your girls,” Sullivan said.
Ed was surprised he wasn’t trying to tie him.
There must be others, upstairs or on their way.
Ed took a seat as instructed, while Jade and Teagan covered him in hugs. He wanted to cry, grateful that they were alive. He sank into the comfort of their hugs, but kept emotion from leaving his body. First, he had to see what he was dealing with.
“What do you want?” Ed asked.
Sullivan looked different. Normally, the young man was impeccably dressed, pinstriped, and tidy, hair slicked back. This Sullivan looked like he was barely surviving after a three-night bender — hair unkempt, white dress shirt untucked and wrinkled, tie unknotted and limp. His eyes had dark circles beneath them, and he wasn’t wearing his black hipster glasses.
Ed wasn’t sure if the man sometimes wore contacts, if the glasses were misplaced fashion statement, or if something else was happening entirely, though just what that might be, Ed had no idea. But something was definitely wrong with Sullivan.
He took a seat in a chair opposite the couch with only a coffee table between them. Ed considered ways he could use the coffee table to his advantage, but kept his eyes on Sullivan while waiting for his answer.
“I like you, Ed,” Sullivan said.
“I’d hate to see how you treat people you don’t like.”
Sarcasm seemed lost on Sullivan.
“There are few humans we see as worthy of joining us. Accessing Sullivan’s memories, and archives of our experience going against you, we see you as a formidable enemy, and a possible ally in this new world.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Ed said, his mind already guessing. “Wait? You’re infected?”
Sullivan smiled. “Infected is such a pejorative term. We prefer evolved.”
“How long have you been evolved? Did you come to this world like this?”
“No, Sullivan is one of our more recent acquisitions. A good one. A heightened human, like yourself. We appreciate humans who can benefit our species, rather than bleed it.”
“What do you mean?” Ed asked, using curiosity to buy minutes.
“We made a mistake on the
other world, attempting to assimilate your species all at once. Yes, we won, but it was messy, and missed our purpose. It was chaos, destroying us as much as you. This time, we are looking to keep you alive, as hosts.”
“Hosts?” Ed repeated, unable to hide his disgust. “You want to nest inside us like parasites?”
“I believe your word symbiosis is closer. Mutual existence, both of us better for the union.”
“I’d like to ask Sullivan what he thinks about this arrangement,” Ed said. “If he’s even in there anymore.”
“I’m still here,” Sullivan said, though Ed couldn’t be certain he was hearing Sullivan at all. For all Ed knew, the only thing left of Sullivan was his flesh.
Ed asked, “You like having this thing in you, Sully?”
“You humans are such hypocrites,” Sullivan said. “Your body teems with bacteria and tiny bugs which allow you to live as you do, and digest foods that you eat. Without other life forms, you’d cease to exist. If we didn’t come along now, you’d surely annihilate yourselves in a matter of time. You put on such a benevolent face for such a hostile species.”
“I’ve seen what your kind did on the other world,” Ed said. “How do you expect me to see you as anything other than a threat?”
“I told you, you’re among the chosen who will evolve. You, and your family.”
“And what about everyone else?”
“Let me ask you this, Ed. If you were growing a garden and weeds started to sprout, would you nurture those weeds the same as you would the plants you wanted to thrive? Or would you eliminate them?”
“Eliminate them,” Ed said. “But in my version of this hypothetical, you’re the weeds.”
“Oh, come now,” Sullivan surprised Ed with his casual tone, “you’ve seen the worst of your species. How you treat one another, with no regard for life — how can you see humans as anything but parasites? Your societies are based on destruction — of one another, and your resources. I know you see this as true, which is why I’m inviting you to be a part of something better. Something better than either of our species could ever be on our own. We’re gathering numbers and strength, preparing for our day. I promise you, Ed, it will be glorious: no death, starvation or destruction; only life forever.”
Ed pretended to contemplate the monster’s offer, buying time, mulling options. Sullivan seemed to be on his own, so Ed could defeat him if he could gain the upper hand. As his mouth moved, his eyes scanned the room for something he could use. “Why should I trust you? This isn’t exactly something people will sign up for — ‘Oh yes, please, infect me, take over my body.’ ”
“You only fear this because you’ve not yet seen the good we are capable of when you’re one of us. We exist as one, each caring for and knowing what the other thinks, wants, needs — because we all think, want and need the same thing. There’s no distinction between one and all. There’s no need for the barriers of language. We communicate here,” Sullivan pointed to his head. “How long have humans been here, and this is the best you can do?”
“Can’t argue that,” Ed said. “Humans suck, yes Sir.”
“It’s your choice, Ed. Join us and we can usher in a new world together … or die with your family.”
* * * *
CHAPTER 7 — Rose McCallister
Rose stared at the man holding them hostage, confused, afraid, and feeling as if the world had been pulled out from under her the moment she entered the hotel room. “Who are you?”
Rose looked to Boricio, frantic with questions, hoping she would see something in his eyes that might explain the impossible. But his face was uncharacteristically absent. He was smiling, but it wasn’t any sort of smile Rose had ever seen. His eyes looked odd, too, like he wasn’t there — or perhaps was maybe drugged, something more than his pot.
She turned to their attacker. He looked like a retired cop more than a psychopath. “What do you want with us?”
The man’s lip peeled back in a horrible smile. Off-white gleamed under the ugliest grin Rose had ever seen.
“My name is Mike Blackmore,” he said. “As for what I want … I suggest you ask your boyfriend.”
Boricio said nothing. The man she loved was buried behind a smile so sour and stripped from its usual confidence, she could barely stand to see it. He looked equally stoic and crazed. Seeing the stranger above him holding the gun made Rose think of a cat and a snake, but she had no idea which was which.
Rose kept begging Boricio for an answer, her eyes to his, but his silence only got louder. Finally, Mike stepped into its middle.
“Cat got your tongue, Boricio?” He waved his gun from one captive to the other. “You were writing books with your filthy mouth a few minutes ago. Clearing years of work from my desk, writing lines for psychos in every novel or novella I’ll ever write, and now you’re playing mime because we have company?”
Boricio stared at Mike, muscles bulging as he flexed against his restraints. “Leave her out of this!”
“The world will never stop surprising me,” Mike said, turning to Rose. “I wouldn’t have thought a monster could feel what this one seems to feel for you.”
“What are you talking about?” Rose dared a step forward, hoping the stranger wouldn’t pull his trigger in a packed motel. She needed Boricio, and had to get nearer even if only a step at a time.
Mike reached down to the bed, picked up a manila folder and thrust it at Rose. “See for yourself.”
Rose grabbed the folder, heart racing as dread spilled through her gut. Whatever had brought the man here would be revealed in its contents. She imagined that he was some conspiracy theory nut who was about to hand over a whole bunch of documents which would prove that the world was out to get him. Boricio happened to be in the wrong place and time, crossing paths with a lunatic.
What could have unraveled him like this?
Rose opened the folder to faded photos of a young girl — the kind parents had, baby photos and school portraits. Pigtails, freckles, uncertain smile, crooked. The pictures then went evil: a desecrated body, almost cartoon in its defacement, with crude drawings that looked … at first the word in her head was familiar, until familiar grew meaning and Rose found a sudden and soul-raking horror. A scream caught in her throat, then slowly clawed its way out as her eyes found the Applebee’s logo with a line through it, then blew from her lips as she hit the final picture: a head like a jack-o’-lantern sitting atop the dresser.
Rose was mush, her legs weightless. She wasn’t sure how she managed to stay on her feet. Her head was dizzy, stomach churning, heart beating out of her chest. “What is this, and why are you showing me?”
Her eyes were on Mike.
Mike moved his to Boricio.
Oh, no.
“That was my daughter, Amber. Last time she was seen alive, she was in the company of your animal, here. Why don’t you ask him what he has to say about her? Already said plenty before you got here.”
Mike pitched his voice into a reasonable approximation of Boricio. “What do they call you at the rest stops, Ass Vandal? Hershey Murial? Mr. Butterworth on account of your colita being so rich and creamy?”
He lost his Boricio, went back to a barely controlled Mike.
“Before that, your boyfriend said it was nice to make my acquaintance since he never likes to tear life from a man’s throat, or intestines from their belly, without knowing a name. He said there was no need to be proper, nicknames were fine. Your monster also said he ‘came for justice’ in my murdered daughter’s mouth.”
Rose heard every word like the song it would have sounded like, sung by Boricio. She could hear a sick glee in the words.
Boricio finally spoke: “This is between me, you, and the four balls between us. She ain’t done nothing but be here. You do what you have to, and I’ll make it easy. But you’ve gotta let her go.”
“Like you didn’t for Amber.”
“Apples to oranges. I was doing what I did, but you’re only doing what you thi
nk you have to. You’re better than I am.”
He admits it. He did do it!
Oh, God!
The stranger shook his head, then waved his gun at Rose. “Being with someone like you makes her a monster, too. I’ll be doing the world a favor, putting both of you down like the mongrels you are.”
“That’s the thing, Señor Sorrow, you’ve already broken the dishes. This shit is for real and forever. She don’t know the Boricio you know, and never did. She knows the Boricio she knows, the one who deserves her, instead of the one who deserves you. Both Boricios were always there, you showed her the one she didn’t know about. Now she’ll wake up screaming through the rest of her life. A bullet’s mercy would be best, but I’ll beg you not to anyway, because I’m a monster to the end, selfish enough to not want a world without my Rose, even if she’s miserable inside it.”
Mike leaned into Boricio. “Tell her what you are, maybe I won’t kill her.”
Boricio turned to Rose, and gripped her eyes like fingers on a cliff.
“I’m every bit of the Boricio you know, and what I’m about to say won’t alter an apostrophe on our covenant, Rose, but there’s a side of me you’ve not met. I’m a hunter. Simply put, I end lives to keep mine strong, and sometimes to make it stronger. At least I used to, before all that happened did. After Boy Wonder, I’ve only purged the deserving. Like that pile of shit preying on Paola.”
Rose gasped.
“The bodies from last night, that wasn’t purging, Rose, that was saving my life and Mary’s. Someone was obviously after us. This here,” he nodded up at Mike, looming above him, “has nothing to do with that.”
“You murder people … just … because?”
“There ain’t no just because … ”
“Answer the question!”
“I purge because I have to.”
“What do you mean, Boricio? No one has to kill anyone else!”
“It’s them or me,” he said, simple, like he’d decided on chicken. “Purging pushes my darkness to the bottom. If it rises too high, it’ll spill out and kill me. Too long without, I’ll put a gun in my mouth and pull the trigger, like flushing a shitter.”
