by J. S. Bailey
But Adrian was murdered along with any hopes Bobby had for their relationship.
He went on, trying not to feel ashamed about his rather unmanly emotions. “There’s a lot of people who should be here right now but aren’t. Jackie.” He nodded toward the Jovingos. “Martin.” He looked to Phil. “My mother. And Graham.”
Randy emerged from the kitchen holding a glass of champagne in each hand. He gave one to Bobby and one to Roger, then went back in to get more.
When all the adults had a glass in hand, Bobby said, “I’d like everyone to make a toast to those who’ve gone before us.” He raised his glass into the air, hoping no one would notice how it trembled.
The other guests raised their glasses in turn, then proceeded to pour back the champagne.
“And now let’s eat!” he said, setting the glass on an end table.
Since he was not normally taken to drinking, the effects of the alcohol were almost immediate. The room swayed, and Bobby meandered into the coral- and aqua-themed kitchen to grab some food.
A hand clutched his arm, and Bobby jumped when he saw Randy’s concerned face looming next to his. “What’s going on?” Randy asked, his voice low.
“Nothing. I’m fine. Just need some food to soak up the champagne.”
Bobby turned to grab a plate, but Randy stepped in front of him, his normally-tan face pale. “You have that I’m-going-to-wet-my-pants-if-I’m-not-careful look. Are you having a premonition?”
I hope not. “No.”
“You really don’t look well.”
“I—”
“This line is moving slower than the United States Congress!” Frank the First called out.
Gritting his teeth, Bobby dumped a glob of ranch dip onto his plate and loaded it up with celery, broccoli, and carrots; then rushed back into the living room avoiding eye contact with everyone.
He took a seat in the corner by a bookshelf containing photo albums, a few Bibles, and some history books Bobby couldn’t picture Randy reading, hoping no one would decide to talk to him. With the way his arms shook and how his thoughts spun like tops through his mind, he felt as though he were on the edge of a breakdown.
Carly planted herself in a folding camp chair next to him. “You look pale.”
“I’m not used to champagne.”
“You’re full of crap.”
“It’s true, though.”
She arched an eyebrow. “That may be, but that’s not the real problem, is it?”
“I don’t—”
A startled cry cut him off. Beverly, who’d still been holding her glass of champagne, dropped it. It cracked upon impact with the floor, spilling the remnant of the drink into the carpet.
A man who shouldn’t have been there stood in the center of the living room, wearing a wicked smile.
Thane.
His apparition had worn black for the occasion.
Bobby doubted it had anything to do with Graham’s passing.
Silence fell so thickly upon the room that Bobby knew every occupant was holding his or her breath.
Thane’s hands were clasped behind his back. He turned in a full circle, nodding at everyone in acknowledgment. Bobby couldn’t believe he’d once thought the man to be an angel sent from above to help him.
Now he knew Thane was more like an angel from hell.
There is nothing you can do. Be at peace.
The pieces of celery Bobby had already eaten were working their way back into his throat.
“Everyone is here, I see,” Thane said in a soft voice, his eyes like cold brown marbles. “Except for that coward who returned to Idaho.”
Nobody uttered a word. Ashley Mason let out a whimper and turned away from him. Bobby’s heart broke for the child. The young were taught that monsters weren’t real, yet here one was, as plain as day.
“I’ve said before that it’s my desire to see the Servant dead, yet he still lives despite what I feel have been my best efforts.” Thane leveled his gaze at Bobby. “You live under a special sort of protection, yes?”
Bobby did his best not to look terrified. He kept his mouth firmly closed.
Thane went on. “It seems to me, though, that not everyone is under the same protection you are. Some Servants have died in the line of duty anyway, presumably because they ignored certain advice that would have spared them.”
Bobby swallowed. The angel Caleb had told him in a vision that a few former Servants had ended up dead for that very reason. Thane could only have known that from looking inside Bobby’s head.
“And the kin of the Servants,” Thane said with a little sneer, “as well as those who used to be Servants, aren’t under protection at all. Isn’t that a pity? Why, one of them could pass at any moment with no way to save them.”
Frank the First’s ancient face went white, and his eyes became full of horror at something no one else could see.
He crumpled to the floor and didn’t move.
A tide of pandemonium crashed over the room. Frankie, Frank’s grandson, let out a yell and rushed to the old man’s side, Phil hurried over to check his pulse, and Lupe frantically tapped at her phone to dial 911.
“Don’t cry for him,” Thane spat. “That old thing should have been euthanized ages ago.”
Thane disappeared and rematerialized two feet in front of Bobby and Carly.
“Turn yourself over to me,” Thane said coldly. “If you don’t, this will happen to all of them, this little bitch included.” He glared at Carly and vanished.
A wail of anguish arose from the other side of the room.
Bobby felt the world go gray and, unable to help himself, he bent over and vomited.
BOBBY PACED back and forth in his living room, feeling more agitated than he had even in his direst moments.
Paramedics had pronounced Frank the First dead at the scene. There had been nothing overly unusual about that—after all, the man had lived to see more than a century. Then the coroner had been called to take Frank away, and the other Jovingos left shortly thereafter.
Bobby’s chest felt tight. Despite Randy’s reassurances otherwise, he knew that Frank’s death was Bobby’s own fault for not properly dealing with Thane in a timely manner. But after Thane had dropped off his radar last summer, what had Bobby been expected to do? Go after him and poke him with a stick?
A knock on his door startled him out of his ruminations. Normally he would have checked the peephole to make sure nobody who hated his guts was waiting out there with a lead pipe or an Uzi, but given the evening’s circumstances, he expected it to be someone like Randy or Carly.
He pulled open the door and practically had to pick his jaw up off the threshold. Standing before him was none other than Caleb Young, his former roommate who had vanished back in July and turned out to be, of all things, the Servants’ guardian angel.
Caleb had glasses that magnified his eyes and wore khaki slacks and a blue jacket embroidered with the Autumn Ridge Community College logo. The winter wind tousled his brown hair. “May I come in?” Caleb asked.
It took several seconds for Bobby’s mouth to start working. “Yeah.”
Caleb strode past him, and Bobby stared after him, blinking. The hour grew late—it was nearly ten o’clock now—but he didn’t think it was late enough for him to start having hallucinations.
Caleb did not take the couch like Bobby had expected. Instead, he planted his hands on his hips and gave Bobby an expectant look.
“What are you doing here?” Bobby asked. Aside from speaking to Caleb in a vision, he hadn’t seen the man since he’d vanished from the rental bungalow over on Fir Street five months earlier.
“Given the circumstances, I thought that a face-to-face chat might have a better effect.”
He had a point there. “What’s going on?”
Caleb’s face was so grim it might have been carved of stone. “First, I would advise against cleansing Bradley Scholl tonight. Your mind is too full; you would have difficulty focusing on your
task.”
“I…guess I can do it tomorrow, then? What else?”
“You will be required to make a choice.”
“I’ve been making plenty of those lately.”
“Not this choice. You cannot do everything. You have to choose what’s most important.”
“What, like stop Thane or finish taking care of Bradley?”
“Something along those lines.” Caleb cleared his throat. “I have to say, you aren’t the man you were when we lived together.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?”
“It could be.”
“Depending on whatever choice I make. Right?”
Caleb smiled and dipped his head. “I’ll be seeing you around.”
As Caleb moved toward the door, Bobby said, “Wait! You can’t leave now. Stay and help me.”
Caleb turned toward him. “Did you think I’d ever left?”
“Caleb, please. I—I know what you are. It’s just easier having you around like a regular person.”
“Indeed.” Caleb checked a watch on his wrist. “And before I forget, there’s one more thing I’m supposed to say. You were never meant to be together.”
“You mean me and Carly?” Bobby blurted. “Because we’re not together; all I did was buy her a necklace.”
“It means what it means. Goodbye, Bobby. I trust you’ll do the right thing.”
Then Caleb walked out the door. Bobby watched helplessly as his ex-roommate disappeared from view.
“Great.” Bobby punched a fist into the palm of his other hand. He couldn’t go after Thane—the man would undoubtedly find some indirect way to harm him like he’d done last summer. But if he didn’t do anything, more of his friends and mentors would start dropping like flies.
“I need help,” he said out loud.
Call Father Preston, the Spirit whispered.
Like the priest could answer all of Bobby’s problems. Still, it wouldn’t be a good idea to ignore such advice. He picked up his cell phone and called the priest, who picked up on the second ring. “Hello?”
Words started pouring from Bobby’s mouth before he even realized what he was saying. “Hey, Father Preston? Something bad just came up. I—I can’t work with Bradley tonight.”
Alarm colored the priest’s voice. “What? Why not?”
“Just keep him safe and comfortable, okay? Tell him I have no other choice but to leave.”
“Leave? Where are you going?”
“I—I don’t know.” Bobby hadn’t even known he’d be leaving until he said it, and now that he had, he knew it was the right action to take in these circumstances. “It’s just something I have to do. I don’t want to do it. Trust me, if I could stay here, I would.”
It took Father Preston several seconds to respond, and when he did, his voice had dropped to a whisper. “Bradley has been growing agitated all afternoon and evening. I’m not sure how long he’ll be able to hold himself together before he grows violent.”
“I get that. I really do. Look, if you need help, you know who else to call.”
He ended the call before he could give a proper farewell, then rushed into his bedroom and pulled his suitcase out of the closet. What in the blazes was he doing? Skipping town did not suit him, even though that’s what he’d always done when the going got rough.
He’d fled New York after his neighbor had been killed, and he’d scampered from Utah after members of a rock band he’d liked to hang out with got violent at a jam session, but now Bobby had responsibilities. Running away when there were people here who needed him was cowardice, plain and simple.
In fact, it made him act an awful lot like Adrian Pollard, his mother.
Bobby paused with a long-sleeved shirt clenched in his hand. Adrian had indeed run from all responsibility when she’d abandoned four children. Could Bobby really be that much like her?
Hating the implications of it all, he tossed the shirt into the suitcase and threw two more on top of it.
Another knock at the door made his breath catch in his throat. Had Caleb come back to reprimand him?
Bobby dashed back to the living room and held an eye to the peephole just to be sure.
To his complete surprise, Carly stood there holding a small suitcase of her own.
“What’s going on?” Bobby asked once he’d pulled the door open. “Why do you have a suitcase?”
Carly stepped inside and set her case on the floor. Her eyes were still bloodshot. “I had the feeling you’d scamper, and thought you might like some company.”
“No offense, but your grandpa just died. Shouldn’t you be with your family?”
“They don’t know I’ve come here.”
That didn’t answer Bobby’s rhetorical question. His shoulders slumped. “How would you even know I’m ‘scampering’? I didn’t even know I’d be scampering until about two minutes ago.”
“Because I know you. You’ll want to get as far away from Thane as possible before you start plotting a way to stop him so you’ll be out of his range.”
“His range?”
“Well, his sphere of influence. He can’t fiddle with minds everywhere, can he? I’d think it would be too hard for him.”
“I don’t know.”
Carly’s eyes narrowed. “That is why you’re scampering, right?”
“Um, right. Let me finish packing.”
Bobby went back into his room, and Carly stood in the open doorway watching as he threw in some jeans and extra socks.
“Which direction do you want to scamper in?” Carly asked. “I can start looking up places to stay.”
“Will you stop calling it ‘scampering’? It makes me look bad.” Bobby tugged the zipper shut on his case and straightened. “I don’t care where we go as long as it’s as far away from Thane as possible. For all I know, he can mess with people’s minds in Timbuktu as easily as he can here.”
“I was hoping we could stick to the continental U.S. I don’t have a passport.”
Bobby let out a pent-up breath. “I take it you’ve got everything you need?”
“Yep.”
“Then let’s get out of here.”
Bobby made sure the house was locked, then he and Carly buckled themselves into the Nissan. “Let’s stop for some supplies first,” he said.
“Okay with me.”
Bobby stopped at a 24-hour gas station to have the tank topped off, and inside they purchased a handful of energy drinks, Mountain Dew, Coke, Sprite, and half a dozen snack items that Carly insisted on paying for herself.
“You should have let me pay for those,” Bobby said once they were back in the car. “I mean, you don’t even have a job.”
To his surprise, Carly stiffened. “You’re right. I don’t. Doesn’t mean I can’t help out once in a while.”
“Okay, okay.” Not wanting to argue, Bobby changed the subject by picking up the road atlas he’d brought with them. He opened it to the Oregon page and started scanning the highways leading out of Autumn Ridge.
“You’ve seriously got to invest in a smartphone one of these days,” Carly remarked as Bobby put a finger on a route leading east out of town. “Then you could just look everything up on Google Maps.”
“I prefer Old Trusty. I could always do the atlas thing again.”
“What atlas thing?”
“The one where I randomly point at a page to figure out where to go next. That’s how I ended up here.”
She turned to face him, her expression unreadable. “You mean the only reason you came to Autumn Ridge is because you stabbed your finger at a map and that’s where it landed?”
“Pretty much.”
“Did you even know what state you’d be pointing at?”
“No. I shut my eyes and kind of riffled through the pages.”
“Wow.”
“What?”
“Here I was thinking you’d been drawn to this place by some cheesy travel ad. Stabbing your finger at a map. Honestly! The guy upstairs must have one
crazy sense of humor if that’s how he got you here.” She leaned her head back, closed her eyes, and drew in a deep breath. “We’re doing the right thing, aren’t we?”
The Spirit gave Bobby a reassuring murmur. As crazy as running away seemed, apparently it came with a heavenly stamp of approval. “Yeah,” Bobby said. “Are you going to be all right?”
“I don’t see why I won’t be,” she said after a long pause. “I always get through things one way or another. Just start driving. I’d hate to still be here when Thane finds out you’re gone.”
SUNDAY MORNING dawned bright and frosted. Thane extricated himself from the sheets and comforter on the bed he’d claimed after assimilating himself into his parents’ new home, then stretched his limbs and smiled.
Today was going to be a great day.
He draped a silk bathrobe over his thin frame and walked unashamed down to the dining room, where his mother and father were drinking coffee and eating omelets prepared by Meryl, the taciturn housekeeper. His mother beamed at him as he took a seat beside them. “Good morning, Nate. Did you sleep well?”
Thane made it a point to hide his disgust at her. The only reason she and his father weren’t revolted by the mere presence of him was because he’d tweaked their minds to think nothing was amiss.
If her warmth toward him was genuine, he would have been flattered, but he held no illusions about her.
“I slept beautifully,” Thane said as Meryl brought in a plate and mug for him. He’d dreamed of his accident again—a regular occurrence for the past twenty years—and hadn’t been overly bothered by it. Being confronted with the same horror night after night tended to take away the impact of it all, like seeing reports of mass shootings on the news. The first time it had happened, the nation had been shocked, but now it happened so often that many people regarded such reports to be as trivial as weather forecasts.
At least that’s how Thane saw it, and he wasn’t that different from other people, was he?
While Thane listened to his parents discuss matters that had nothing to do with him, he fought the temptation to peek into Bobby Roland’s mind to see what turmoil he might be going through at the moment. Killing the ancient ex-Servant had been easier than Thane expected—all it had taken was to make the old man believe he was dying, so he died. It had been the same when he’d struck down Graham Willard and rendered him a vegetable. People could be so gullible that their own survival instincts wouldn’t kick in and save them.
