Psych: A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Read p-1

by William Rabkin

  “Run, Shawn,” he said. “One of us has to keep on living.”

  Shawn didn’t move. “I can’t leave you here to die. Not when it’s at least a small part my fault that you’re here in the first place.”

  “A small part!”

  “Okay, since you’re giving up your life to save me, I’ll let you have this one-it’s all my fault. Shake on it?” Shawn extended an open hand to Gus.

  “My hands are a little busy here,” Gus said. Above them, the potatoes was yanking on the gun’s barrel, trying to get it away from him.

  “I’m not leaving until we shake hands,” Shawn said.

  “Then you’re crazy.”

  “Let go of my gun,” the potatoes grunted, giving the stock a yank that nearly pulled Gus off his feet.

  “Absolutely,” Shawn said. “Let’s shake on it.”

  Gus stared at Shawn’s outstretched hand, baffled. The potatoes yanked at the gun again, and suddenly Gus understood. “Oh, shake on it.”

  “If you don’t let go of my gun, I’m going to come around and beat it out of you,” the potatoes shouted, then gave the stock another hard pull. Just then, Gus clasped Shawn’s hand and gave it a hearty shake. Of course, to do that, he had to let go of the barrel first. The gun flew upward, blasting hundreds of tiny holes in the tin roof as the potatoes toppled over backward.

  “Now run!” Shawn shouted. Gus hadn’t waited for him to explain the rest of the cunning plan. He was halfway to the door before Shawn was on his feet. Somewhere behind him he knew the potatoes was pulling himself up on his spud feet and reloading the shotgun. Gus could feel the muscles in his back rearranging themselves into the concentric circles of a practice target, and he needed to put the bull’s-eye out of range.

  In college, Gus had tried out for the track team to impress a girl his roommate had described as “fast.” With the sure, if completely mistaken, knowledge of a date with the most beautiful woman in the northwest quadrant of campus as his reward, Gus ran faster that day than he ever had before, missing the qualifying time for the four hundred meter by less than a minute.

  If only he’d had a shotgun pointed at his back in college, Gus might have had a chance to learn just how little interest the “fast” girl actually had in runners. Because Gus was blasting through that qualifying pace. He could feel the hot asphalt slamming into his feet through the thin leather soles of his English dress shoes as if he were barefoot, and he didn’t care. His calves were coiled springs, propelling him violently forward with every step.

  In the distance behind him, Gus could hear someone calling his name. If he’d stopped to think about it, he would have known it was Shawn, probably begging him to slow down a little to let him catch up. But he wasn’t going to stop for anyone, not even his best friend.

  It wasn’t fear driving Gus anymore. Not completely, anyway. It was the exhilaration of the run-the sense of speed, of freedom, of life itself. He felt that if he could increase his pace just a fraction, he could achieve escape velocity, actually lift off the earth and into orbit. He’d be flying.

  “Gus, stop!” Shawn was shouting somewhere in the far distance. Gus ignored him. Couldn’t Shawn see he was about to fly?

  “Gus, car!”

  When Shawn shouted, Gus was at least thirty feet in front of him. Since sound travels at seven hundred seventy miles per hour, it took his voice at least one-thirty-fifth of a second to reach Gus. Maybe a fraction more, since he was accelerating away from Shawn, and there was the Doppler effect to consider. Even after Gus heard Shawn’s voice, it would have taken at least another. 028 of a second for the meaning of the word to penetrate his brain. Even if he could have shaved a couple of milliseconds off, there was no way Gus could have altered his direction in the time necessary. He was in midstride, both feet off the ground. The best he could do was twist his trunk around so he could see down the length of road he was crossing.

  So he could see the bright red Mercedes S500 slaloming down the street as its driver pounded the brakes. So he could smell each particle of rubber scraped off the smoking tires as they left sharp black skid marks on the faded asphalt. So he could appreciate the glint of sunlight off the shiny Mercedes logo heading straight for him.

  For one second, Gus knew exactly what he needed to do. If he could somehow keep himself in the air, postpone his descent for just one fraction of a second, he could clear the car’s hood and land on its opposite side with catlike grace.

  Gus squeezed his eyes shut and willed all his strength into his ankles. If they didn’t sprout small wings to keep him aloft like the Sub-Mariner’s, it wouldn’t be for lack of trying.

  A second passed, and Gus realized he hadn’t been smashed against the windshield like a bug. He opened his eyes and saw the car screeching to a stop behind him. He did it. He flew. He looked down at his ankles to see if the wings had sprouted there.

  There were of course no wings. But that wasn’t the problem. He’d lived this long without feathered ankles. The real problem was the other thing he didn’t see down there.

  The road.

  Or any solid ground.

  All he saw was the battered gray metal of the guard rail disappearing under his feet. And then the long, long drop to the garbage dump below.

  Chapter Four

  The asphalt was surprisingly soft under Gus’ back. When he was running, he could feel every pebble and shard of glass piercing the soles of his shoes. But now that he was sprawled out over the pavement, it felt soft, smooth, and pliable. Gus stretched out a hand and probed the ground with his fingers. The asphalt compressed under his touch as if it were stuffed with down.

  Gus tried to understand what was happening. There was a faint possibility that he had developed super-strength to go along with his newfound ability to fly. But the aches in his muscles, the pounding in his head, and the screaming pain from his rib cage were suggesting strongly that he was not about to be sworn into the Legion of Superheroes. Which made it far more likely that what he was feeling under him was actually not the road where he’d fallen. He probed the surface again, and this time recognized the slip of sheet over mattress.

  He was in a bed. But how did he get here? He might convince himself that he’d dreamed the whole thing, Veronica Mason’s trial included, if there was an inch of his body that didn’t hurt.

  Using all the strength he could muster, Gus forced his eyelids open. A giant head filled his vision, sandy brows nearly brushing his own eyeballs. Gus let out a scream.

  The giant head screamed, too, and moved away quickly. Gus’ eyes fought to focus.

  “Dude, you’re awake,” Shawn said.

  Gus squinted against the light and was able to make out Shawn’s beaming face over his.

  “I was just checking to see if you were still breathing,” Shawn said.

  “What happened?”

  “You were,” Shawn said.

  “Before that,” Gus said. “How did I get here?”

  “Someone tried to kill us.”

  Gus tried to recapture his last, fleeting memory. A red Mercedes flitted across his consciousness before his subconscious hauled it back with the other moments too painful to remember.

  “With a car.”

  “With a shotgun.”

  There was something about a gun tickling the edges of Gus’ brain. For some reason, he envisioned what could only have been the mascot for the University of Idaho’s skeet-shooting team; a giant smiling potato holding a shotgun. And then it all came flooding back. The Echo. The shack. The attendant.

  “He tried to kill us!”

  Gus fought the screaming pain in his shoulders and moved his arms across his body, checking for spatter pattern. There didn’t seem to be any.

  “Don’t worry, buddy,” Shawn said. “Nothing but soft-tissue damage. At least that’s what a fleet of doctors tells me.”

  “Doctors?”

  For the first time, it occurred to Gus to wonder exactly where he was. He managed to shift his eyes away from Shaw
n’s face, even his ocular muscles aching with the strain, to see the dull fluorescent tube throbbing on the ceiling, the small TV bolted to the wall, the cheery sailboat painting hanging over the institutional sink. He flexed his fingers over his chest and noticed that his starched button-down business shirt had been replaced with a flimsy sheath of slick, flameproof polyester.

  “I’m in the hospital?”

  Shawn patted him proudly on the shoulder. It felt like a sledgehammer on Gus’ bruises. “And they were worried about potential brain damage. I knew your brain was too strong for that.”

  “Who was worried?”

  “And I was right. They all agreed that everything was going to be just fine. As long as you woke up before-” Shawn checked his watch. “Hey, right under the wire. Good timing, buddy.”

  “What if I didn’t wake up now?”

  Before Shawn could answer, Gus heard the sound of a door opening across the room.

  “Shawn?” It was a woman’s voice. Gus risked dislodging several vertebrae and twisted his neck so he could see the door. A pair of blazing red shoes, the toes more sharply pointed than the four-inch spike heels, appeared in the threshold. Gus could hear the heels digging divots out of the linoleum with every step. Forcing his head higher, Gus could make out a long stretch of tanned, muscular legs. He put his hand under his chin and forced his head up farther. The bare legs seemed to go on forever. Finally, far above the point where any normal piece of clothing would have ended, Gus saw a flash of hem. Blazing red hem.

  The legs turned and moved assuredly toward the couch.

  “I got the paper,” a female voice said. At least, those were the words she used. The voice itself seemed to be promising something much more enticing than the Santa Barbara Times.

  “Thanks,” Shawn said, then turned back to Gus. “You and Tara haven’t been formally introduced. Although you have kind of met already. Well, you might have seen her as you sailed over her windshield.”

  Shawn moved out of the way, and Gus’ entire field of vision was filled with the image of Tara’s upper thighs. He struggled to pull himself to a shaky sit so he could finally see what she looked like. And immediately wished he’d closed his eyes and slipped back into his coma.

  The woman was almost as tall as Shawn, at least in those absurdly high heels. Her long hair was as black as crows’ feathers; her ice blue eyes burned out from lashes that were even blacker. Her lip gloss flashed the same fierce red as her minidress, although the gloss seemed to cover a few more square inches of skin. Tara’s lips parted in a smile, and Gus felt a mixture of terror and attraction he hadn’t experienced since Natasha Henstridge used her tongue to turn a suitor’s brain into shish-kebab in Species.

  “I’m so happy you’re awake,” she said in a voice that seemed to promise joys and punishments Gus had only imagined when he was absolutely certain no one could ever read his thoughts. “We were so worried. When you went over the edge like that, I thought my heart was going to stop.”

  “Thanks,” Gus said, then grabbed the only part of Shawn he could reach, the tail of his shirt. “Could I speak to you alone for just one moment?”

  “We are alone,” Shawn said. “Well, alone with Tara, which is better than being alone alone.”

  “Shawn!”

  Shawn gave him a disappointed sigh, then turned regretfully to the woman in red. “Not quite himself. Needs a moment to put on his face.”

  “I certainly understand,” Tara said. “I’ll be in the waiting room, reading about how amazing you are.”

  Gus watched the legs amble out the door, then hissed at Shawn, “Do you know who that is?”

  “She just told you,” Shawn said. “Her name is Tara Larison and-”

  “Did she mention she’s also the devil’s daughter?”

  “We haven’t really talked much about her family. She did say she has a cousin in medical school. That’s why she could be so sure you were alive after we found you.”

  “Shawn, she looks just like Satana,” Gus said.

  “Isn’t that a kind of raisin?”

  “That’s a ‘sultana.’ Satana is the daughter of Satan, raised in Hell and banished to earth to live as a succubus.”

  “When did you start going to church?”

  “Every Sunday when I was little,” Gus said. “My parents insisted I pray for forgiveness for all the things you talked me into doing. But this isn’t from the Bible. It’s from Vampire Tales number two.”

  “That would be one of your lesser-known holy books.”

  “The whole story didn’t come out until Marvel Preview number seven.”

  Shawn stared at him. “You’re saying she’s a character from a comic book.”

  “Not just one. She was all over the Marvel Universe.”

  “Gus, I know you hit your head, but you should be able to tell a few things about Tara. Like for instance she isn’t printed on cheap paper. When she talks, her words don’t appear in balloons over her head. And after long and hard study, I can guarantee she exists in at least three dimensions.”

  “I know she’s not an actual comic book character,” Gus said. “I am awake enough to realize that. But if someone chooses to look just like the incarnation of all evil in the world, shouldn’t that send some kind of message?”

  Shawn sat on the bed next to Gus, sending a shock wave through the mattress that made all of Gus’ muscles scream in pain. He started to pat his friend on the shoulder, but Gus’ obvious flinch made him reconsider.

  “Maybe,” Shawn said. “But so should this. When you went over that cliff, she nearly went with you, she was trying so hard to catch you. She’s the one who guided the ambulance to where you’d fallen. She dug through garbage to make sure you were comfortable until they came. And she never stopped fighting for you. She insisted on staying here until you were awake. She badgered the doctors and nurses into giving you the kind of treatment they usually only give to people they actually care about. If you’d needed that surgery, I think she would have scrubbed up and joined in the operation.”

  “What surgery?” Gus said.

  “Nothing you have to worry about now,” Shawn said.

  “And that’s in large measure because Tara fought so hard for you.”

  Gus felt the familiar pang of guilt he experienced every time he caught himself judging another human being on physical appearances. And then he felt the equally familiar pang of irritation at feeling guilty about making that kind of judgment. Ever since his mother had caught him making fun of Bobby Fleckstein’s new glasses in second grade and made him sit in the corner for ninety minutes, Gus had felt guilty every time he made a snap judgment about another person. And since his careers as a pharmaceuticals rep and a detective both depended on his ability to size up a new contact immediately, Gus spent a lot of his time feeling guilty. And irritated.

  “Okay,” Gus said. “I guess she isn’t really here to regain her powers so she can return to Hell and battle her father for the kingdom.”

  “Glad we got that out of the way,” Shawn said. “You can come back in now, Tara.”

  Even after his gracious concession, Gus half expected her to materialize before them in a puff of sulfur. Instead she clacked her way in, spike heels turning the floor into a cribbage board behind her.

  “I didn’t realize how amazing you were,” Tara said, waving the newspaper.

  “Not many people do,” Shawn said. “But I’ll be happy to make sure that you are one of the select few.”

  “I mean what you did at that trial,” Tara said. “You told me you were there to give justice a helping hand. But this is much more than that.”

  “I start out trying to lend an appendage, but once I’m involved, my whole body gets into it,” Shawn said. “If you’d like a further demonstration of the principle, I’m sure it can be arranged.”

  Gus tried to focus enough to read the headline on the newspaper. No matter how many times he squeezed his eyes shut, every time he opened them he saw the same words:
“Veronica Mason Innocent.” Of course that would be the lead-in story in any afternoon paper. But Santa Barbara didn’t have an afternoon paper.

  Gus snatched the newspaper out of Tara’s hand and felt lightning bolts of pain shoot up him arm. He squinted through the tears of pain clouding his eyes and tried to make out the date above the headlines. “Shawn, this is tomorrow’s paper.”

  Tara let out an excited gasp. “You get newspapers from the future?”

  “Ever since a man named Lucius Snow saved my life as a child,” Shawn said. “He gave me the gift… and the great responsibility that comes with it.”

  “That’s amazing,” Tara said.

  “That’s not you,” Gus said. “It’s Kyle Chandler in Early Edition .”

  “Next you’re going to tell me I don’t coach high school football in small-town Texas, either,” Shawn said. “That poor Jason Street. What’s he going to do with his life now that he’s in a wheelchair?”

  “Shawn! This newspaper is from Wednesday. The trial was on Tuesday.”

  “And on Thursday, it’s dollar day at BurgerZone.”

  “What I’m trying to say, Shawn, is how long was I unconscious?”

  “Not that long,” Shawn said.

  “How long?”

  “Remember Titanic?”

  “Sure.”

  “About that long.”

  “That was only four hours,” Gus said. “She hit me before lunch.”

  “Sorry,” Shawn said. “How long it felt.”

  “Oh, my God.”

  Tara kneeled down next to the couch and took Gus’ free hand. “It was a long, long night, and a longer morning,” she said. “But Shawn was with you every minute of that time.”

  “And now we’re going to get the guy who did this to you,” Shawn said.

  “The impound attendant?”

  “Exactly. He’s hiding something, and he thought he could scare us away by waving his shotgun at us.”

  “Actually, I think he thought he could scare us away by killing us,” Gus said.

  “Either way, he was wrong. And we’re going to take him down.”