The man didn’t answer. As we climbed we kept asking, kept explaining that we weren’t any part of this, but the man didn’t respond.
Panicked voices rang out from below. The kid who’d grabbed me from the alley was bringing two more people up behind us.
One story from the top we heard another scream from above. I didn’t want to go up there, didn’t want to see what was causing people to scream like that. I considered diving through one of the windows we passed, hoping Summer would follow me, but the man with the gun was right behind us. He’d be on us before we could even get up to run. With my legs shaking so badly I could barely find the steps, I climbed the last flight, onto the roof.
There were eight or nine people on the roof, gathered at the far end. Most of them had guns. One jogged over and took control of us, nodding once to the big man, who turned and headed back down. We were hustled toward the group.
“What is he doing?” Summer said, staring toward the people gathered on the roof.
A man in camo was clutching a woman by the upper arm, dragging her along. The woman screeched and pleaded, dug in her heels, trying to pry the man’s fingers from her arm. Another man grabbed her other arm with his free hand. They dragged her toward the edge of the roof.
“No. Stop,” Summer said, her hands pressed to her cheeks.
They lifted the woman, who was bucking and bicycling her feet, over the low wall until she was sitting on it. She was blubbering, pleading, gripping the edge of the wall for all she was worth as she tried to twist around.
The men pried her fingers loose and pushed. She fell, screaming.
“Jesus, what are you doing?” I asked.
“Sending you back where you came from,” said the man with us. He had a goatee, was maybe thirty.
“We’re not,” Summer said. “Look. Look at our hands.” She held out both hands for the man to examine, glanced at me, said, “Show him yours.”
I held out my hands.
“We’re not stupid. We know the demons hide,” the man said. “Let’s go.” He raised his gun so casually, like it was a beer and he was about to take a swig.
“You’re making a mistake—we don’t have any demons,” Summer said.
“Yeah,” the kid leading the group behind us said. “Then what were you doing in Little Five Points? Partying with the rest of Satan’s army, that’s what.”
“I was walking her home,” I said. “It’s not safe for her to be out here alone with all of the dead walking around. She was delivering food to her eighty-year-old mother who lives on McClendon.” The two men were listening, maybe even looking uncertain, so I kept talking. “This is Summer—”
“I live on Highland,” Summer interjected. “Finn is my neighbor. He wouldn’t let me go alone.”
The guy with the goatee stared at us. “Get over there.”
It hit me suddenly, why they were throwing people off the roof when they could simply shoot them. You could only hear screams for a block or two, and there weren’t many residences in this area. Gunshots you could hear for half a mile. That would alert police and National Guard troops.
“This is nuts,” I said. “We’re on your side. You can’t just throw us off a roof.”
“We’re at war with Satan,” he said. “Innocent people die in war, especially when the stakes are five billion souls. If you’re innocent, it’s too bad you were in the wrong place.”
“You can’t just call something a war and murder people,” Summer said. She gestured toward the other end of the roof. “You have to stop them.” They were dragging a young guy toward the edge now; it was taking three of them.
The guy’s taut expression didn’t change. “I’m not gonna say it again. Move.” He raised the gun, tensed his finger.
I held my ground; so did Summer. “You won’t shoot us unless you absolutely have to,” I said. “You don’t want the police to hear.”
He turned his head, called, “Pete. Need some help here.” A man with a rifle trotted over. This guy was tall, with big muscular arms. He strode right up to me and, without a word, belted me in the side of the head with his rifle.
The roof spun; a hard, dull pain spread from one temple to the other. Somehow I stayed on my feet. An arm wrapped around my neck, putting me in a headlock, twisting me off my feet and dragging me. Dragging me toward the edge, I knew. Panicked, I reached up, trying to dislodge the arm. Vaguely I heard Summer screaming.
“Soldiers!” someone called. “Soldiers. Let’s move.”
The arm around my neck was suddenly gone. I fell to the ground, struggled to my hands and knees as Summer reached to help me.
A gunshot cracked nearby. Then shouts, the thump of boots, and more gunshots.
I lifted my head to look around, but saw only black static dots. My head was killing me. “What’s happening?”
“They’re running. Someone must have called the police.” Summer sank to the roof next to me, started to cry.
A siren rose in the distance, drawing closer.
CHAPTER 32
There were no joggers in Pitman Park, no Frisbee tossers or skateboarders. Since the hammer had fallen on Atlanta, people didn’t recreate. Maybe they rode treadmills and pumped weights in gyms, but those were serious things that allowed you to retain a tight-lipped expression. The only type of smile that was appropriate in Atlanta now was a gallows smile, the sort of smile that didn’t reach your eyes, and told people you could take a swift kick in the crotch, or the end of the world, in stride.
The only people in the park were hurrying through on their way to somewhere else, and those with nowhere else to go, yet I flinched whenever I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. This place didn’t feel safe to me. Nowhere felt safe to me now, except Mick’s place. Every time I closed my eyes I was back on that roof; when I did manage to sleep it was all nightmares, all night now.
At the Sally (that’s what those who used it called the Salvation Army) I’d been told Salamander might be found here, and what he might be wearing.
He was sitting on a park bench next to a steaming Styrofoam cup of coffee, his dog-eared sneakers crossed, his face hidden inside the hood of a filthy parka save for glints of a thick grey beard. I hurried over to him.
“Excuse me, are you Salamander?”
He pressed his hands on either side of the bench, looked up at me. “Well, I guess I am. My name is actually Sal Mandel, but it kind of drifted, you know?” He chuckled.
I smiled. I’d found Dave, I couldn’t believe it. As soon as I’d walked up Dave’s heart must have leapt. “Man, I’ve been looking all over for you.”
He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “A couple of guys told me someone was looking for me.” He lifted his cup, took a swig. “So now you found me. What can I do you for?”
“My name is Finn—”
He jumped to his feet, sloshing his coffee, and pointed at me. “You’re the one he called.”
“That’s right! Dave called me. He was my friend. He was looking for his wife.” I’d found him, I’d definitely found him.
Sal nodded emphatically. “I thought I was losing my frickin’ mind. He took hold of me, made me walk where he wanted, blink when he wanted.”
“I know, we’re all losing our minds lately.”
He pointed at my chest. “You got a hitcher too?”
“I do, yeah. But listen, I need to talk to Dave—”
Sal shook his head. “He’s gone.”
“I know, but when he comes back—”
Sal kept on shaking his head. “No, I mean he’s gone. For good.” He grinned, waggled his eyebrows joyfully. “I’m a free man again, master of my own domain.”
I frowned. “How do you know that?”
Sal stuck out his bottom lip, raised his shoulders. “I just do. I felt it. When he slid out of me it was like the best b.m. I ever had.”
I searched his face for some sign that he was kidding, or lying, that it was wishful thinking. He met my gaze, nodded once. He seemed s
o certain I half believed him.
“Why would he leave you, when all the rest of them are hanging on tight?” I asked.
He turned his eyes up, thinking. A woman rode by on a bicycle, her tires crunching pebbles and fallen twigs.
“You know,” Sal said, “I couldn’t tell you. It happened right after that second call he made to you, though, when your lady friend answered. If it was anything she said, I sure do appreciate it.”
What had Summer said? She told Dave to meet us at Mick’s place. Dave had asked if there was any word from Karen, and Summer had said...
Hope stirred in me like green buds on dead winter branches. Summer had ripped Dave’s heart out of his chest. She’d taken away Dave’s will to come back. If it was true that the dead who were back were the ones burning to be back, what happened if that fire was snuffed out?
I pulled out my wallet, fished out one of my business cards and all of my cash, maybe three hundred dollars. I held it out to Sal. “I need you to do something for me. It’s extremely important.”
Sal looked at the money, then at me, waiting.
“Will you promise to call me once a day, and tell me whether Dave is still gone?”
“That’s it?”
I nodded.
Sal took the card and the money. “Hell yes. What time?”
“I don’t know. How about noon?”
Sal nodded. “High noon every day. I can handle that.” He looked at the stack of twenties. “You pay handsomely.”
“It’s life and death. In fact, I’ll give you another thousand two weeks from now if you call me every day.”
Sal held out his hand, and I shook it. “You got a deal.”
If this is true... I kept thinking on the way back to Mick’s place. I didn’t want to wish Dave gone, but if he was...
Lorena had insinuated that it wasn’t a matter of choice, that she would leave Summer if she could. But that would be like willing yourself to not like chocolate, or to not love someone. You can’t not feel what you feel. What if you stop feeling it, though?
The trick was coming up with some way to make Grandpa lose his will to stay. Try as I might, though, I couldn’t think of anything. Killing Toy Shop might do it. I could discontinue it, but as I demonstrated after Grandpa was gone, you can always start a strip up again. What could I do—cut off my hands and burn out my eyes? The stony bastard would hold the pencil in his mouth if he had to.
Maybe Sal’s revelation could help Mick and Summer, though. Especially Mick. Gilly seemed to be back for one reason, and one reason only: finish the album and get Mick to record it. Beyond that he didn’t have much of a life to return to. If Mick pitched in and helped him finish, he might just drift away. In fact finishing the album would also mean Gilly had patched things up with Mick, working alongside him (metaphorically speaking) just like in the good old days, and that seemed to be the crux of Gilly’s drive to be back in the world of the living.
We’d been focused on finding a solution that would free all three of us, a one-size-fits-all hitcher-exterminating process. A silver bullet; a wooden stake. But these weren’t monsters, they were people, and each had their own reasons for being here. It made sense that each might require a different rite of exorcism. For some, there might be none at all.
CHAPTER 33
As the news droned in the background I paced Mick’s apartment, nervous about the trip to the hospital, eager to get started if we were going to do this. There was no point in moving until Lorena showed, and that could be in one hour, or thirty. Once she showed we’d have to move quickly, and hope we didn’t draw the attention of any God’s Hammer nut jobs.
I brushed past Gilly, who was sitting in a leather chair beside one of the big windows, completely absorbed in his composition, his eyes clenched shut, his lips moving silently.
“How’s it coming?” I asked.
Gilly opened his eyes. “It’s coming. I wish Mick would try out a few of the songs I finished.”
Mick glowered when anyone suggested he do this. He didn’t buy my logic. The way he figured it, the more attached Gilly got to his songs, the harder it would be to send him back where he belonged. At least, that’s what he muttered when I told him my plan. I didn’t think he was being completely honest with me, though. He’d seemed evasive, almost angry when I suggested he help Gilly finish the album.
“How many hours has it been?” Summer asked. Her hair was down today; it was dark and silky, perfectly straight. Not quite long enough to touch her shoulders. She flipped through channels, stopping on a football game. The Bears versus the Colts. “Ooh. Anyone else here a football fan?”
“Eighteen hours and counting. I’m a Bears fan, since I was about nine,” I offered.
“Really?” Summer’s eyes lit up. She held up her hand for a high-five without leaving the couch; I adjusted my pacing route, slapped it, then joined her on the couch.
“My grandfather was from Chicago. I’ve been a Bears fan since I was three.” Summer dropped the remote and propped her feet on the coffee table. The Bears were down 7-3. While Gilly worked, and the National Guard reinforced the barricades set up around the Route 285 loop to repel a horde that was growing larger and angrier by the day, we watched football. I’d already posted what I’d learned from Salamander on the relevant websites, but still, we should have been scouring the Internet for clues on how to shake our hitchers. Time was not on our side.
I glanced over at Summer, who was staring up at the massive TV screen sporting a half-smile, hugging one knee.
She saw me looking, looked at me. “Mmm, smell that?” The aroma of onions and peppers wafted through the open windows, from Queenies.
“Nice,” I said.
“Do you like to cook?”
“No. Lorena was the cook.”
“I can’t cook either. Opening the refrigerator is a humbling and confusing experience for me. I eat fast to dispose of the evidence.”
I laughed; I could definitely relate.
Jay Cutler completed a twenty-yard pass on third and ten. Summer raised her fist in the air.
“Nervous?” I asked.
“Plenty.”
“Just be careful not to fall out and you’ll be fine.”
She shifted position, pulling one foot underneath her. “I’m more afraid of seeing my brother than anything else.”
Across the room, Gilly dropped his pencil. “Okay. Hey, Mick.” The way he said it reminded me of Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man (only dead); I wondered if Gilly might be slightly autistic. In some ways that fit him, but in others it didn’t.
Mick brushed the knees of his jeans, stood and stretched. “All right, Finn? Summer?”
“Good to see you, Mick,” I said.
Mick went to the window, stared down at the sparse traffic below. “Good to be me.”
Summer jumped up, tugged my sleeve once, and headed for the door. “Let’s go.” Correction—it was Lorena now. I hadn’t even noticed the transformation.
It was remarkable, how different a body looked depending on who was controlling it. Summer’s gentle, slightly pigeon-toed gait, her tendency to clasp her hands behind her back, was replaced by Lorena’s assertive stride, the flex-relax, flex-relax of her thighs, the loose swing of her wrists. Summer’s squiggly smirks, which would have been right at home in a Peanuts strip, would be replaced by Lorena’s wide smiles. Although Lorena wasn’t smiling just now. She snatched up Summer’s coat and purse from beside the door, turned to wait for us. “If we’re going to do this, let’s go.” Her tone was tight, impatient.
We threw on our coats, hurried to join her.
“You don’t mind?” I asked, touching her elbow.
Lorena shrugged, looked at the door. “Sitting in a hospital room isn’t how I’d like to spend the few hours I get before I’m banished again, but you’ve all decided already, so let’s get it over with.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I wish we had more time to spend together. This is so important to Summer, though.”<
br />
“Fine. I’m not arguing.”
Mick slid past us and out the door without a word.
“Are you all right?” I asked Lorena.
She looked at me for the first time. “You know, in case you forgot, I was there while you and Summer were finishing our date.” She spit the word “date” like it was a pit. “I could see how you were looking at her. You looked at her that same way when she was our waitress at the Blue Boy.”
I tried to say something, but Lorena cut me off.
“I may have to share a body with her, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to share my husband.” She folded her arms. “How could you dance with her like that?”
I could feel my ears getting red. “Lorena, you’re inside her. When I’m dancing with her I’m also dancing with you. That’s always in my mind.” That sounded lame even to me. “Besides, I wanted Summer to enjoy herself, too.” That was closer to the truth.
Lorena grunted, rolled her eyes.
“You know, she doesn’t have to hang around. She could go home, or to Montana, and every time you came out it would take time for us to meet up again.”
Lorena’s eyes narrowed. “She couldn’t afford to go to Montana—” “Let’s just talk about this later,” I said, cutting her off. The last thing I wanted was for Summer and Lorena to have any more reason to hate each other.
Lorena spun, breezed through the door. “Fine.”
Mick drove. The security guard tipped us off that the press were waiting for Mick at the exit from the parking lot, and sent us out the delivery entrance.
As we sped through town I looked out the window, feeling ashamed. For two years I’d mourned Lorena, wondering if I’d ever be able to love someone else. Now, miraculously, Lorena had returned, and I was struggling with feelings for another woman. Maybe it was understandable; wouldn’t it make sense that my feelings might blur and become confused when my wife was sharing a body with another woman?
But I’d been attracted to Summer at the diner, before I knew Lorena was inside her. Lorena seemed to think it went back even further. Was I attracted to Summer even when Lorena was alive? I didn’t remember that at all. I’d been madly in love with Lorena.
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