Tom raised his handgun in anticipation. They both watched the hunter's body contort and squish together as it was dragged down the too-small hole, like a massive slug being sucked down a drain. Congealed blood splattered on the ground from the hunter's open wounds. Soon there was no evidence that he had even been there, save for the chunks of bloody muscle around the hole in the ground, and the severed arm lying impotently on the forest floor.
Tom heard Artie's voice call out from the trees.
“Tom. Tom, we heard gunshots, are you alright?” Artie called, the duffel bag slung over his shoulder. Artie looked out of breath. Keda was with him, keeping up with a light jog.
“Yeah, just had a... something,” Tom said, wiping the sweat from his forehead. “We're fine. Everyone's fine. Officer Dawes, are you--”
Tom felt his heart sink into his stomach. Dawes had raised her handgun, pointing it squarely at his face. She pointed it at Artie and Keda as she heard them approach, the barrel shifting targets as her arms shook. Tom put his hands up, dropping his own handgun to the ground.
“Who the fuck are you?” Dawes screamed. Keda and Artie raised their hands. “What the fuck is going on? Who are you?”
6
“Creeping Wind”
“Okay, so Invisible means...”
“Invisible, or Subjective entities have taken residence in a person or a place in the material world, but can't directly affect it. They can speak to people and induce visions, most of them can read minds, but they can't physically harm anyone or move anything. Their influence can't be perceived by anybody except the people they target.” Artie dragged off of a cigarette and punctuated his explanation with a sip of beer.
.“And Visible means the opposite of that,” Dawes grumbled, her speech slurring. Dawes was rubbing her forehead fervently as she took a gulp from her fourth beer of the evening.
“Right,” Tom began. His fresh cigarette hung from his mouth. “Visible, or Objective, means one of two things. The creature has either found a way to affect the physical world directly, meaning it's crossed over completely and independently of a host-- or the given target has a mental resolve that stops the entity from affecting their mind, usually without the entity realizing it. It doesn't happen all the time, but it happens most commonly when someone takes certain narcotics or medications-- benzodiazepines for example. Heroin is another one.”
“And that's a bad thing?”
“Sometimes. It varies from creature to creature. Some things we want to force into the physical realm, so we can deal with them directly on our own terms. Other things can do a lot more damage that way, so we try to go to them on the Subjective level.”
“And you gave me a bar of Xanax,” Dawes said wearily. “So that's bad? Something might attack us right now?”
“Extremely doubtful. Between Artie and Keda, we can trust one of them to notice if something is nearby. And even then, they only put a sort of armor around a person's psyche. They’re not a hundred percent effective and less violent entities will back off rather than becoming vulnerable. But as a precaution, the half-life of most benzo tablets is six hours, so you should stick near us until then.”
“So what are we dealing with here?” asked Dawes after another gulp, her head slumping forward.
“We're not sure yet,” Artie explained calmly. “Our investigations have us thinking that it's started as a Subjective threat, and at some point it crossed over.”
“Or maybe it can do both,” Tom added. “Starts Invisible then physically torments the target. Or maybe its activities just leave a Visible residue-- the mold in Susan Bailey's closet. We don't know.”
“You've lost me,” Dawes groaned. “How the hell do you keep track of all this? How do you know what to do?”
“Well. We've been at it for a while,” said Artie through a gap-toothed smirk.
“What we do know is it seems to have a thing for closets. Keda's on the phone now with Margaret. She'll be checking to see if she can match the M.O. with anything the department has encountered before,” Tom said coolly.
“Who’s Margaret?” Dawes asked with a pursed lip.
“Margaret is our boss,” Tom explained. “She works at the Department headquarters in L.A. keeping records and intel, that kind of thing. Used to be a top notch Operator.”
“Uh huh,” Dawes said through another gulp of beer. Tom blew out a sigh of cigarette smoke. Dawes retreated into her drink.
Keda's angular face reappeared at the table. He sat down and folded his hands on the table in front of him.
“Margaret thinks she has an ID,” Keda said. Tom raised his hands in relief.
“Fantastic. What are we dealing with?”
“She wants you to call her.”
“Right now?”
“Yes,” Keda said calmly.
Artie made a whip-crack noise with his mouth as he sipped more beer. Tom rolled his eyes and stood up while he dug around for his phone.
********
Cool, late afternoon air brushed Tom's face. He stood on a deserted corner. Looking around the town, he noted that was the only kind of corner there was. A boarded-up pharmacy dominated the other side of the road.
Tom flipped open his phone. He pressed the speed dial for Margaret and waited. He lit a cigarette and leaned against a closed dumpster behind the bar.
“Margaret,” the voice on the other end answered.
“Hey, Maggie. It's Tom.”
“I have some info for you,” she stated simply. Tom noticed with some anxiety that she wasn't chiding him for calling her Maggie.
“I'm listening.”
“Artie and Keda did some digging into that sample you left behind. I passed the particulars onto one of our mediums.”
“And?”
“Tom... Niku no Ki Akebara. Do you recognize that name?”
Tom's breath froze up in his chest. The world around him suddenly felt a lot smaller and less significant. He flexed his hand consciously, taking deep breaths to stay his panic.
“I'm sorry, did I hear you right?”
“Niku no Ki Akebara. You know that name, don't you?”
Tom swallowed. “Akebara. The Tree of Flesh,” Tom said as calmly as he could manage. “The monster in my closet.” His head spun. “It makes sense... The closets. The mold... the nightmares.”
“Nightmares? You're having nightmares?”
“How could it be here?” Tom demanded sharply. “Akebara was exorcised in California. The house was condemned. How can it be in West Virginia?”
“I don't know, Tom.”
“No, this doesn't make any sense. Akebara never became Objective. Akebara never kidnapped me. The hauntings don't match. Nothing matches. The only similarity...”
“Wet floors,” Margaret cut in. “Wet closet floors. Like it rooted there.”
“In two separate places,” Tom shouted into the receiver. “I was told Akebara was contained. It was dormant. Nobody lived in that house after me. How can it be here?”
“Tom, calm down.”
“I get it now. The exorcist, Susan's nightmares... she was being haunted the same way I was. Akebara was living in her closet, just like it did with mine. But how?”
“Tom, I told you, we don't know yet. We're working on it. Take a deep breath.”
Tom sucked a long drag off of his cigarette and looked over the nearby hills. He shied away from them when he saw the trees on their skyline. Could the tree of flesh be in those woods somewhere?
“Then what are these things we've been seeing?” Tom added. “These mutilated people.”
“That's for Artie and Keda to find out,” Margaret said with a sigh.
“So what do we do now?”
“You don't do anything, Bell. I'm pulling you off the case.”
Tom's heart fell into his stomach. “What?”
“You're too close,” Margaret said firmly. “You'll compromise the investigation. You have to leave. I'll have someone else out there in two days.”
&nb
sp; Tom mind was awash with a mixture of guilty relief and anger. He wasn't sure what to feel, so instead he just shouted.
“What the fuck, Margaret?” Tom spat through a mouthful of smoke. “I bring you results and you're throwing me off the case?”
“I thought you wanted some time off.”
“No, fuck this. Do you know what this thing did to me? Do you know what it did to my life?”
“Of course I know. That's why you can't stay there. You’re too familiar.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Tom, listen to yourself. You're emotional, you're angry, you want revenge-- you're too vulnerable. It will feel you coming and it will use you. I know you understand that. If this was anyone else you'd agree with me, one hundred percent. You have to leave.”
Tom squeezed the cellphone as if trying to crush it.
“Whatever, I'm getting to the bottom of this.”
“Tom, I'm just going to text Artie and tell him.”
“Fuck you, Margaret.”
Tom snapped the phone shut. He turned around and tried to bury his fist in the side of the dumpster, only succeeding in hurting his hand and causing a loud noise. He knelt down, rubbing his knuckles and tossing his cigarette aside angrily.
He seethed and felt his heart rate rising. His breathing quickened. The ground under his feet felt strange and unreal. So did everything else. The boarded-up pharmacy loomed over him, standing as a monument to his insignificant life. His tiny, pointless body floated in some random point in space. He tried to look out into the distance at the tranquil mountains, but constantly shifted his eyes back to the concrete in front of him.
There was a panic attack coming. There was no stopping it. His heart threatened to explode, every unfeeling atom promising to split apart at the slightest incorrect thought.
Tom reached frantically reached into his wallet, trying to pull out the small packet of pills he kept there. He dropped them. He swore loudly into the sky and scrambled to pick the pills back up.
Tom pushed a pill out of the foil packet and clutched it between his fingers while clumsily stuffing the wallet and the rest of the pills back into his pocket. He practically threw the little tablet into his mouth, and let it sit there with a bitter tang on his tongue, before he realized he had nothing to drink.
He took a deep breath. He used his tongue to push the pill into the gap between his cheek and his molars. He stood up and started an approach towards the entrance of the bar. Off-balance, his left shoulder scraped along the side of the building, and he clutched his right hand to the side of his head protectively.
He finally found himself stumbling through the entrance. He kept his head low as he made his way to the table and sat down. His coworkers looked up at him with alarm.
“Water,” he stated.
“What?” Artie said.
“Water. Water, water, fucking water,” Tom demanded, slamming his open palm against the surface of the table. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat and tried to hide his face from the large windows.
“Tom, are you alright?” Keda asked, reaching a hand out. Tom smacked it away.
“Just get me some fucking water,” he shouted. The other lone patron of the bar, an overweight trucker, looked over at him with a frown. Tom didn't notice, nor would he have cared.
“Panic attack,” Artie said with a grunt. “Hang on Tom, just hold out, buddy. I'll be right back.”
“Thank you,” Tom said, turning his head away as Artie stood up from the table. Dawes finished off her beer and raised an eyebrow at him.
“The fuck, pal?”
“Shut up, just give me a minute,” Tom snapped. He took loud, ragged breaths through his nose.
“Did you smoke some bad pot or something? Fuck.”
“Just shut up,” Tom said through gritted teeth. He ground his elbow against the table. Keda just sat back, looking helpless and disturbed.
Artie returned with a large glass full of ice water. He handed it to Tom, leaning over him and patting him on the shoulder.
“Here you go, buddy.”
“Thank you.” Tom shakily gulped down several mouthfuls of water. The cold liquid numbed his throat. He rubbed at his Adam's apple and neck muscles fervently, and then clutched his hand to his chest. His heart rate rose as the Xanax went into his stomach. He hated the thought of a chemical forcing his body to slow down, something controlling his mind. But he knew in a few minutes he'd care a lot less.
“What's up, man? Just stressed out?” Artie asked, rubbing Tom's shoulder reassuringly.
“Akebara,” Tom choked out. “It's Akebara.”
Artie's eyes widened. He helped Tom out of his seat.
“Come on, we gotta go,” Artie said. Keda nodded.
“Is he alright?” Keda asked.
“He will be. I'll explain in a minute. We need to go.”
“Miss Dawes, will you be alright? Can you meet us later?”
“Yeah, I'll be here. Call me Heather.”
Dawes slumped back into her seat. Tom brushed Artie's hand away, following him with his shoulders hunched forward to the relative safety of the car.
********
Tom stood under an outcropping of balcony that stuck out over the door to their motel room. The sun was creeping towards the horizon and the pill had long since taken hold. High school girlfriends and lost career opportunities floated through his head, towards all of which he maintained a stoic indifference. He was thinking about calling Margaret back to apologize when Artie came outside to join him for a smoke.
“Hey,” Tom said quietly.
“Hey, man,” Artie said cheerfully, lighting his cigarette. “You alright?”
“Yeah. Haven't had one like that in a while.”
“I know. Last one that bad was... what, two, three years ago?”
“Well. I don't want to make a big thing out of it,” Tom said as he stuffed the cigarette between his teeth. He leaned idly against the wall, shifting his weight occasionally for lack of anything else to do with himself. “Generally they only last about thirty seconds these days. I just don't wanna go back to all that.”
“You're fine,” Artie said reassuringly. “It's physically impossible. The human brain and body can't go from zero to screaming panic on a regular basis without experiencing anticipatory anxiety.”
“I don’t know about all that. I hardly think about the physical possibility of it when it's happening.”
“Physics are all we got, man,” Artie said with a chortle. “You've told me you worry the world isn't, I dunno, 'real' and shit, but what is that?”
“It's hard to explain to someone who doesn't have it.”
“Why so glum, though?”
“You and I work with the supernatural and the dead every day. It's hard not to feel futile in the face of the shit we see. Like the world's just a rotting veil, pulled over our eyes to hide something much more terrible and bleak.”
“Maybe the demon world is a shitty little hole, and they wanna come up to our world, because that's what it's really all about. Y'ever just look at the stars when it gets dark, man? Look at those woods now, even. If I lived in the world where something like Aki came from, I'd want out too.”
“Yeah, and look at war and starvation in the Middle East, and little girls locked in basements while their fathers molest them,” Tom said darkly. “The world's hardly the sum of all of our western, white, middle class experience.”
“That's people, man, not life,” Artie rebuked. “Life's just waking up and seeing the sun. Some motherfucker wants to kill somebody after that, then that can be fixed.”
“Fixed? Mankind's been finding new and amazing ways to beat each other’s brains out since the caveman days. I'll tell you what, that's why this Harold guy scares the living shit out of me,” Tom said as he lit a new smoke idly. “The club, the sword, the gun, the atomic bomb... is Harold the next step? How long is it before someone weaponizes Mediums?”
“That shit is gonna ki
ll you one day,” Artie chided at Tom as he put away his pack of cigarettes.
“I'm more likely to be killed in action than live long enough to get lung cancer. Fuck it.”
“Sure are a depressed kind of guy, Tom.”
“Yeah. You mind if we change the subject? I was just getting level.”
“Sure, sure. Where's Keda?”
“Off to find a conduit, he said,” Tom said, eyebrows rising in bemusement. “We're gonna have a séance and try to find out what we can do about this thing. But not like it'll matter much, I'm out of here tomorrow, apparently.”
“What?” Artie asked incredulously.
“Maggie's throwing me off the case. Says I'm too close. She's right,” Tom said quickly before Artie could respond, leaving him instead to just mutter to himself.
“Fuckin' A, man,” Artie said sadly. He looked out at the dimming streets. “I don't wanna work with some douche. Me and you are a team.”
“It's just one case.”
“Any case can be the last case,” Artie replied indignantly. “No case is just one case. This is a serious haunting, man. I think something's wrong with the people.”
“Yeah, no shit,” Tom said with a smoky chortle.
“Like, really. This place... I'm not surprised you're having panic attacks, dude, there's nobody on the streets... that diner yesterday was almost empty. This place is eating itself from the inside out.”
“Or the outside in,” Tom added sardonically. “Map of the missing people shows them all from the outskirts of town, spiraling inwards. Akebara's starting on the edges and working towards the center.”
Artie and Tom looked at each other. They shared a moment of perturbed silence.
“Did you just--” Artie began.
“Figure something out? I think maybe.”
“Shit,” Artie sighed. “I'll run it past Margaret, I guess.”
“Blegh,” Tom groaned. He sucked in some more smoke. With a thoughtful frown, he stood to attention suddenly.
“Artie, have you still got those files?”
“Yeah.”
“Can I look at something?”
“Sure, they're inside,” Artie said, flicking away his cigarette. Tom did the same and followed Artie into their small motel room. Artie sat down at a little table by the beds. The manila envelope Dawes had given them rested there. He opened it, sliding the files out and pushing them across to Tom, who sat down across from him. Tom rifled through each of them.
Dead Roots (The Analyst) Page 17
