Something very strange was going on here, no doubt, but Boone couldn’t wrap his mind around it. It was just too odd. Was it possible that the warning, if it was one, was for Boone but wasn’t about him? Could it have been about an old man? Boone only really knew one old man. He pressed a button on his watch and an artificial voice told him it was nearly one in the morning.
Feeling foolish, he took the phone from its charger on the kitchen counter and dialed his father’s number. His old man had always been a night owl. He’d stay up late watching cable TV shows about fishing or woodworking or ancient history or whatever he could find until he drifted off to sleep in his La-Z-Boy.
After three rings, Boone’s father’s voice answered.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Dad. It’s me.”
Silence for a moment, then, “Boone? What time is it?”
“Almost one. Did I wake you?”
“Nah, I’m watching poker on TV.” Uncomfortable pause, then, “Been a while.”
It had been a while. Since Boone began his post-accident withdrawal from the world, he had distanced himself from nearly everyone from his former life, including his parents. His mother had died two years ago and Boone hadn’t made the flight to Florida, where she had retired with Boone’s father. The old man said he understood Boone’s reasons for not attending, but Boone didn’t believe him. How could the man understand? How could he know what it felt like to walk around with this ruin of a face? And how could Boone fly a thousand miles when he literally went blind and couldn’t breathe if he tried to cross the street? So Boone’s father buried his wife without any family at his side and Boone didn’t think his father had forgiven him. In fact, he hadn’t quite gotten around to forgiving himself.
“What’s it been, a year?” his father asked.
“Probably. My fault.”
“Well, it’s not like I don’t have your phone number.”
Another uncomfortable silence passed before Boone thought he should just get to the point.
“You okay, Dad?”
“Me? I’m fine. Why?”
“Just wondering.” Boone realized that he had to do better than that after a year of radio silence. “I mean, it’s just been a while and I wanted to see how you are.”
“Oh. Well, like I said, I’m fine.” After a pause, he added, “How about you?”
“I’m okay, I guess.”
“Any luck with your…uh…you getting out at all?”
Boone blew out a breath. “Not much.”
They both knew that meant that Boone hadn’t expanded his horizons by an inch, which would mean that his father thought Boone was still crazy.
“So anyway, Dad, everything’s okay with you? Nobody, uh, bothering you or anything?”
“Bothering me?”
“I mean, you know, there’s nobody you know would want to hurt you or anything?”
Confused silence.
“What the hell are you talking about, son?”
Boone knew he sounded like an idiot. Worse, he sounded like a crazy idiot.
“I don’t know, Dad. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Why would anyone want to hurt me?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s not like I was a cop who put away a few hundred criminals who are out on the streets again and are gunning for me.”
“I know, Dad.”
“I’m a retired housepainter. You think I put the wrong shade of blue on somebody’s Dutch Colonial and they’ve been plotting revenge for the past twenty years?”
Boone sighed.
“Listen, Dad, forget about it, okay? Like I said, I just wanted to make sure you were all right. And you’re all right.”
“Yeah, I’m fine, like I said. You’re the one you should be worried about.”
I am starting to worry about me, Dad.
“Okay, then,” Boone said. “Bye, Dad.”
His father said good-bye and Boone hung up.
That went beautifully. Well, at least he put his mind at ease that his father didn’t seem to be in any danger. Which left the mystery right where it had been before he’d confirmed for his father that his son was, indeed, bonkers.
Boone walked back into the living room on his way to his bedroom. He figured he’d change into a T-shirt and comfortable lounging-around pants, then listen to the Morgan Freeman wannabe on his audiobook.
As he walked through the living room, he cocked his head, half expecting to see the mountain pictures hanging crooked again, but they seemed to be straight. He went to the bedroom and had just finished changing his clothes when a deep rumble shook the apartment. It felt like a big truck had backed into the building.
Boone snatched the phone from his night table and dialed the number for the bar downstairs.
“Kenny’s Keg.”
“Kenny,” Boone said, “what the hell was that?”
“What the hell was what?”
“Was it an earthquake?” Boone asked, knowing full well that earthquakes in Massachusetts were rare.
“Earthquake? What the hell are you talking about?”
“What, you didn’t feel that?”
“Feel what? I don’t know what you’re talking about. Where are you, in your apartment? Oh, sorry.”
Kenny should have known that if Boone wasn’t in the bar, he was almost certainly in his apartment.
“You really didn’t feel the building shake?” Boone asked.
“The building didn’t shake, Boone.”
“Yeah, it did. I mean, it wasn’t like a giant earthquake or anything, but it definitely shook.”
“Hold on a second.” When Kenny’s voice came through the line again it was farther away, like he was holding the phone away from his face. “Anybody feel the building shake just now?”
Boone could hear a few responses he couldn’t quite make out, then Kenny was back on the line.
“One guy says the girl who just came in rocked his world, but otherwise, nobody felt a thing. You okay, Boone? Want me to have someone watch the bar while I come up?”
Boone paused. The bar was loud. And at street level. It was possible that a vibration would be felt only on a higher floor, though this seemed unlikely given that Boone was only one flight up, especially considering that if a truck bumped the building it would have been right outside Kenny’s bar.
“Boone?”
“No, I’m fine, Kenny. Thanks. Talk to you later.”
He hung up before Kenny could reply. Maybe Mr. Goditis next door felt it, whatever it was. He decided to go knock on his neighbor’s door and ask. He was halfway through his living room when he saw them.
Damn it.
No point in going next door. Mr. Goditis almost certainly hadn’t felt the building shake. Whatever happened was confined to Boone’s apartment.
The three mountain pictures were crooked again.
CHAPTER TWELVE
MIGUEL OPENED HIS eyes. It was dark and he didn’t know where he was. Then, suddenly, he remembered. He shot his hand out and was relieved to touch the backpack on the floor beside the couch he was lying on. He heard a sound and turned his head to see Larry’s silhouette standing in a doorway beyond which Miguel knew was the man’s bedroom.
“Larry?”
“Yeah?”
It looked like Larry was wearing pajama bottoms and no shirt.
“What are you doing?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, why are you standing there? You watching me sleep or something?”
“No, that would be weird.”
Sure as hell would be.
“So what are you doing?”
“Just came back from the bathroom.”
Miguel thought that could be true. But it also could be that Larry had been watching him sleep.
“You shouldn’t be watching me sleep,” Miguel said.
“I said I wasn’t. But for the sake of argument, why shouldn’t I?”
“Because my dad did
that sometimes.”
“Yeah? So?”
“So I took a baseball bat to his head.”
“Really?” Larry nodded as if he was filing that information away for some reason. “Well, like I said, I just had to take a piss.”
Miguel expected him to head back into his bedroom, but he just stood there looking at Miguel from across the dark room.
“Larry?”
“Yeah?”
“Why’d you tell David I went to Chicago?”
“Who said I told him that?”
“I heard you on the phone before, when we got here.”
“You must have been listening at the door I’d closed.”
Miguel shrugged and didn’t apologize. “So why’d you tell him I got on a bus to Chicago?”
Larry was silent a moment, then said, “Well, David likes to treat you kids nice, right? After he meets with you little guys he wants me to put you right on a bus out of town, money in your pocket, your whole future ahead of you.”
“So why didn’t you do that with me?”
“Well, the other kids, they were little guys, a lot smaller than you. You’re almost a man, right? They couldn’t do the kind of work I need done, not like you could. You follow?”
Miguel nodded.
“Good,” Larry said. He paused. “Look, David wouldn’t even care, really, so long as you get where you’re going. See, like I said, what he cares about is you getting your fresh start somewhere, right? So if he knew you’d be heading out with even more money than just the twenty thou he gave you, he’d be happy, right?”
“I guess so.”
“He would, trust me.”
Miguel thought for a moment. Larry just stood there, a shadow across the room. Miguel said, “This feels funny.”
“What does?”
“You want me to work around your house. You say you’re gonna pay me a lot of money but it seems like you could get some local kid to do it for you. I don’t know…it just feels funny.”
“Look, David pays me really well. I got more money than I know what to do with. And I’m gonna work you pretty hard. Leaves, rocks, gonna paint my dock, maybe my boat —”
“You got a boat?”
“Yeah. Maybe after we knock off the first day I’ll take you out in it.”
“How are you gonna take me out in it if we paint it? Won’t it need time to dry?”
“Jesus, you’re a smart kid, aren’t you? I meant we’d take it out first, then paint it after.”
Wow. A ride in a boat on a lake.
“Sounds okay,” Miguel said.
A few minutes later he went to sleep with a smile on his face for the first time in his life.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
IT WAS POSSIBLE that Boone had imagined the building shaking, but he didn’t imagine that the pictures of the mountains—only the three mountain pictures—had been knocked crooked again. Something very strange was going on here. If Boone were able, he’d probably go stay at a hotel for a while to figure this out. But he couldn’t, of course; there were no hotels on this block. And he wasn’t about to ask Kenny if he could move into the bar for a few days. He was even less likely to ask Mr. Woo if he could set up a cot in the back of the video store on the corner. Still, Boone didn’t love the idea of staying in the apartment.
Nor, however, did he like the fact that his own apartment made him nervous. This was ridiculous. He couldn’t deny that something weird was happening, but that didn’t mean he had to sit around and wait for it to happen again without trying to do something about it.
He sat at the desk in the corner of his bedroom and nudged the mouse to wake up his computer. “Search Internet,” he said.
Because Boone’s vision was too limited to use the computer the way most people did, he relied on speech-recognition software capable of understanding and executing his vocal commands. Most things that people with perfect sight could do with a computer, Boone could do too, though it might take him a bit longer. Another software program read aloud text from the screen. Boone had even paid extra money for a more pleasant, less robotic voice that the speech-software company promised sounded more natural than their standard voices, but even that voice—which the company called Robert—sounded to Boone a lot like Abe with his mechanical larynx. The whole operation was a little clunky, with Boone struggling at times to make his commands understood, then having to listen to stilted speech recite every single word on the screen, but it was all Boone had. And he was reasonably proficient at it by now.
When Boone knew the Internet had come onto the screen, he used vocal commands, spelling certain words that he knew the speech-recognition software wouldn’t know, to surf the web. He started with a general search for information about photographs being defaced. Robert, the expensive-but-still-robotic computer voice, read him blog posts and articles about vandals defacing various works of art, but nothing as mysterious as Boone’s situation. Boone ran several more searches with slightly different wording but found nothing pertinent to his situation.
He gave it some thought before reluctantly revising his search to include supernatural elements. Robert read him stories about vandalism in cemeteries and historical places considered by some to be haunted, but again he found nothing relevant to his circumstances.
Having watched enough scary movies as a kid to know the difference between various kinds of supernatural entities, Boone tried Googling “poltergeist” together with “photographs,” but the results of the search seemed to consist mostly of purported photographic evidence of the existence of poltergeists. He couldn’t really see the photos, of course, but he suspected the pictures were probably fakes anyway. He instructed the computer, which Boone had taken to calling Robert, to delete “photographs” from his search and simply search for information about “poltergeists.”
Robert taught Boone about poltergeists and how they supposedly manifested. They were said to be associated often with females under the age of twenty, which certainly wasn’t the case in Boone’s apartment. They were also said to knock pictures around, which was far more relevant to Boone. Robert said nothing about scratching out faces in photographs, but he mentioned plenty of other weird things that, if poltergeists were actually capable of them, would lead Boone to believe they could certainly deface a few pictures. Supposedly, poltergeists varied widely in their abilities, but some could rearrange furniture, throw objects, cause temperature changes, produce loud sounds and vile odors, cause interference with electronic equipment, and even pinch, hit, bite, or—perhaps most unbelievably—sexually assault a person.
“Robert,” Boone said to his computer, “I’m starting to feel like an idiot.”
Robert was silent, presumably trying to determine whether Boone had issued a vocal command.
The Internet hadn’t been much help, but maybe a live person could be.
“Compose e-mail,” Boone said. The pleasant little chime told him that his e-mail program had opened and was ready to receive dictation.
“To Abigail Collier. Subject: Please tell me I’m not crazy.”
After he was sure that the computer had filled in Abby’s e-mail address and the subject line, he sat a moment and considered what to write. Years ago, Abby had been in a few of his undergraduate psychology classes and they had remained loosely in touch over the years—mostly by e-mail, occasionally by phone, and never, of course, face-to-face. They’d gone on a few dates in college but had realized they were better off as friends. But their friendship wasn’t all that strong—too much of their attraction had been physical and there simply wasn’t enough beyond that to sustain a really close relationship—so after graduation they drifted apart. Though Boone had written her about the accident, she had no idea about his disfigurement. The reason Boone wrote to her now was that he remembered her interest in the supernatural and the psychology of mankind’s widespread belief in it. Abby felt that a comprehensive study of such beliefs was important to a greater and more complete understanding of human cognitive deve
lopment. She even taught a college course about this stuff. Also, Boone knew, she believed in a variety of supernatural phenomena herself. If anyone he knew would have some insight on this, it would be Abby.
“Hope you are well,” he began, then paused for the speech recognition program to catch up. “This is going to sound a bit crazy, but I’m sure you’ve heard worse, so I’ll just get it out there: it’s possible that my apartment is haunted.” He paused, then said to himself, “Boy, that does sound crazy.” He heard the whirring of his computer and knew that this last sentence had been transcribed into the e-mail, but he chose not to delete it. “Anyway,” he continued, “strange things are happening in my apartment, both after I leave here and when I’m home. I hate to even consider the supernatural—you know what I’m like—but what the hell? I can’t explain it, so I don’t think it will hurt for me to consider…alternatives to traditional thinking. And given your interest in such things, I figured you’d listen without calling the guys with butterfly nets. You have my number. If the fact that I may be going crazy doesn’t bother you, please give me a call when you can. Thanks. Boone.”
Boone instructed Robert to read the e-mail back to him before he gave the send command. He was glad he did. He sounded like a nutjob. He decided to put the e-mail aside for a little while to give it some thought before sending. Abby might believe in this stuff, but Boone wasn’t sure he did…and he was even less sure that he wanted anyone else to think he did.
“Turn off microphone,” Boone said to terminate the voice-command function.
As strange as Boone’s experiences had been, he still wasn’t ready to believe that the answer to the mystery lay in the spirit world. If something invisible bit him or, maybe worse, groped him inappropriately, maybe he’d consider it. Until then he had to believe that there was a more logical explanation for all this. The e-mail to Abby could wait.
Boone left the e-mail up on his screen and turned away from his desk just as the screen flickered. Even if he’d been staring directly at it, he might not have noticed—it might have occurred dead smack in the middle of his blind spot. What he would have seen, though, if he could, was a ripple passing across the computer screen, like a tiny wave passing from the top of the screen to the bottom, immediately followed by an instant—just the briefest instant—of near blackness on the screen. The blackness probably wouldn’t even have registered in the eye of a person with perfect vision, it came and went so quickly. But if it did somehow register, and if the person who saw it had an extraordinarily active imagination, he might have seen the merest suggestion of a face suspended in the blackness, as if someone were standing in a void, staring through a dark window into this world…into Boone’s room…before the screen returned to normal.
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