Cruel Devices

by George Wright Padgett

  He fumbled for it, grateful to be awoken from the nightmare. Expecting to see Jo’s icon on the display, he was annoyed that it was an unrecognized number. Gavin tapped “decline” and slid the phone back into his shirt pocket.

  He stretched his arms wide and yawned. He felt a painful crick in his neck as he wiped a strand of drool from the side of his mouth. He supposed it was okay that he had fallen asleep. If Kovács was right, his sleeping would actually slow Torri’s transition process. He had to be awake for the path to be finished. And it had been her spell that had fused her unstable daughter to the thing in the first place, so she must know how it worked.

  As the room came into focus, he noticed the unexpected appearance of sunlight. Instead of the pale dusk of evening, the warm light of a new morning poured in through the sliding door of the balcony. The realization startled him, and he sat up in the chair, reaching for his cell again. It was 9:53 a.m. He’d been asleep for over fourteen hours. How was that possible?

  Still in a daze, he wobbled from the chair to the clock on the nightstand, his reluctant legs as stiff as his back.

  The muted cell phone vibrated again, and he declined the call again.

  The alarm clock next to the bed displayed 9:52 a.m. in red characters. Hunger pains and a full bladder confirmed that he’d been out for a while, but half a day?

  The pain of needing to relieve himself demanded attention. He’d overlooked this part of his plan when securing the machine in the bathroom. Did he dare to go in there? Was this all over? Could it be that he’d drowned it somehow?

  He moved to the produce box on the bed. Was it safe to smuggle the machine out to a dumpster now? It was unlikely that anyone would discover it there.

  The cell buzzed again, and this time he answered. “Stop calling!” He hung up and debated opening the bathroom door or going down to the hotel lobby to relieve himself. He paced the length of the suite. Was it safe to leave it now if he was only gone for a few minutes?

  The phone buzzed again. It was the same person again. He could block the number, but it would take him some time to figure out how. Why didn’t they just take the hint? If it was for an interview, they needed to go through Jo anyway. If it was a fan, they shouldn’t have his number in the first place.

  “Look, I don’t know who you are or how you got my private number, but if you call me again, I’m going to sic my attorney on you!”

  “Mr. Curtis?”

  “Goodbye!”

  Seconds later, it buzzed again.

  “Listen, I told you not to—”

  “Mr. Curtis, please don’t hang up. It’s about Monica.”

  “Monica who?” he shouted into the receiver.

  “Garcia. My name is Anna. Monica Garcia is my sister. You dated.”

  “Yeah, so what?” Gavin gruffly added. “We broke up a long time ago.”

  “She… she’s… something happened last night.” The woman’s words were punctuated with staccato breaths. Finally, she broke, giving way to sobbing. “She’s dead, Mr. Curtis.”

  “What did you say?” His heart sank, hoping he’d misunderstood.

  “I said Monica is dead. Last night. She died last night.”

  Gavin settled on the edge of the bed. He switched the phone to his other ear and cradled his forehead in his open palm. “How… what happened?” was all that he could get out before he was forced to bite his lip.

  “She choked.” Anna’s voice deteriorated into another bout of sobs as she gasped between apologies. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry… I’m… “

  Tears instantly flooded his eyes. Gavin pictured Anna hyperventilating on the other end of the line. Though he’d never met her, he knew of her through stories that Monica had told him about her kid sister. She was very pretty, but a tomboy and a former high-school volleyball champ. He did his best to comfort her. “Anna…” He managed to get another phrase out before his own voice cracked. “I’m sorry for yelling. Take your time.”

  After a few sniffles, she regained her composure. “We were out at a restaurant for an early dinner before going out clubbing. A girl we were friends with during school was getting married today—nothing fancy, just a justice-of-the-peace-type thing at the courthouse. So some of us decided to take her out for a night of bachelorette drinking, the five of us.”

  Gavin felt a lump form in his throat the size of a golf ball as he waited.

  After a pause, Anna said, “I’m sorry. I still can’t get used to it.” She sniffed again. “We were having fun, getting a little rowdy, but it was okay, and then Susan told a dirty joke. It wasn’t even really that funny, but Monica started laughing really hard.” Anna’s voice broke again. “She choked on a piece of chicken from her salad. Rosa is a nurse. She feels bad she couldn’t save her. She tried to do the Heimlich, but it was lodged too far down. She couldn’t… “ The sentence was left incomplete as she broke into another round of sobs.

  “She laughed?” Gavin asked, though he doubted Anna heard him over her wailing. His voice quivered as he repeated. “She laughed? ‘The woman laughed.’”

  The phone shook in his hand as he fought the urge to vomit. The suite was a blur through his tear-filled eyes.

  “Newport. She was at dinner in Newport Beach?”

  “Yes, close to where she lives.” Anna’s voice cracked. “Lived.”

  Gavin wiped away the hot tears streaming down his cheeks. “But that’s three thousand miles away. What time did it happen?” Had he been awake?

  “I don’t understand what you mean, Mr. Curtis.”

  It was his turn to weep as Anna relayed in a matter-of-fact tone. “I've been going through her cell phone, calling people who would need to know.”

  There was a pause.

  “You were always kind to her.” Anna’s voice hinted at being happy for the first time during the conversation, which made it worse for Gavin. He tilted the mouthpiece away from his face so she wouldn’t hear him blubbering.

  She added fondly, “You may not know this, but you really helped her. You came into Monica’s life at a very important time. You meant a lot to her. I think she thought that the two of you would reconnect down the line, but anyway…”

  Gavin managed to squeak out of his constricted throat, “I’m sorry, Anna, so sorry. I didn’t know that it would do that. I didn’t mean for anything like… “

  He sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his fist. “How could I have known? I never would’ve—I’m so sorry. I’m… I’m sorry.”

  Her voice was nearly a whisper. “My mother is making arrangements. Is it all right if I call you later with funeral home details?”

  He coughed and let out a deep sigh. “Yes, please. I want to know.”

  “I’ve got other calls. Goodbye, Mr. Curtis.”

  “Call me Gavin.”

  “Goodbye, Gavin.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  The phone fell to the floor as he buried his face in the bed, screaming. Gavin wailed until his throat felt as raw as if he’d gargled thumbtacks and acid. Moments later, a realization set in, and he shot to his feet.

  “Oh, no! Jo! If she could get to Monica in California, Torri could get to Jo there!”

  He scrambled for the phone. Scrolling to her number, he tried to arrange in his mind what he was going to tell her.

  “Be careful?” What good would that do? Monica had been safe inside a restaurant, eating a salad, when Torri got to her.

  It was dialing. He canceled the call before it connected.

  He’d have to handle this himself.

  There hadn’t been a sound from the device since he’d submerged it in the tub. If a little water quieted it down, what would happen beneath a lot of water?

  His heart swelled with hatred and the pain of guilt.

  “I’ll throw that bitch of a machine from the bridge and let it sink to where it’ll never hurt anyone again.”

  He burst through the bathroom door and clicked on the light. To his astonishment, the rolls of paper c
rammed in from the night before were gone. Unlike the rest of the suite, the air was as thick and humid as a greenhouse. The strong scent of lavender filled the small space, causing him to cough.

  Glancing into the filled tub, his heart skipped a beat. The surface of the water was now a deep burgundy sludge the consistency of coagulated blood. Gavin instinctively pressed his body against the opposite wall as he gasped to reclaim his breath. Whatever the fluid was, it was too opaque to tell if the typewriter remained in it. On the wall behind the tub, a full-sized, distorted silhouette of a human body oozed down the tile, leaving dark red streaks.

  Has she come through? Was the typewriter gone? Somehow, he didn’t think so.

  Small bubbles on the surface of the goo splattered and popped as other bubbles formed to take their place.

  Mustering the courage to move closer to the foul-smelling liquid, he pulled at the shower curtain. Some of the rings snapped apart, falling into the tub. Gavin hesitated, watching the goo absorb the plastic hoops slowly sinking into it.

  He stood on the toilet seat and reached for the shower curtain rod. When it detached, he quickly slid the remaining rings off the end, allowing the plastic curtain to gather on the floor.

  He stabbed at the murky liquid with the metal rod until it connected with something solid. He wasn’t certain if he should be relieved or troubled that the device was still there.

  “So gross,” he said, attempting to shove the object to the back of the tub. It didn’t budge an inch. To apply more force, Gavin stepped down, turned to the side of the tub, and then pushed behind him like a Venetian gondolier. This time, the machine slowly scraped across the acrylic bottom of the tub until it came to a rest at the back.

  Gavin was going to need as much room as he could get, so he removed the rod from the bathroom. He did his best to ignore the dark red droplets falling from the end of the pole and leaving a trail on the floor. He didn’t want to know what that stuff was. If he thought about it too much, he’d lose his nerve for what he was about to do.

  He knelt, his knees sliding on the bunched-up polyurethane curtain. Turning his head to the side, Gavin took a deep breath and plunged his hand into the tub. The unsettling warmth of the liquid was unexpected, and he fought down the urge to retch. Fingers sliding on the bottom of the muck, he managed to grasp the stopper and twist it loose. Tossing the cap on the floor, Gavin shook the runny mess from his forearm. From the elbow to wrist, it tingled as if he’d fallen asleep on it.

  Seconds later, a large air bubble the size of a fist erupted from above the drain of the tub, followed by a steady gurgling sound.

  Gavin returned to his feet.

  The thinner part of the substance below the gelatinous crust began to empty out. As it drained, a residue that looked like a mixture of tomato paste and dark red ink lined the sides of the tub. Clumps of a sinewy membrane floated atop the soupy contents. Though a third of it had drained through the plumbing, the putrid smell hadn’t dissipated.

  Was she reconstituting herself in the bathtub—rebuilding herself from the life energy she’d stolen from Misa Kawaguchi, the bike boy, and Monica? How long did he have?

  Gavin covered his nose with his clean arm as the slop lowered to reveal the top of the machine. Rubbery strands crisscrossed the exposed part of the typewriter like thick spider webs, and the parchment looked like stained polyester.

  Chewing his lip, he pictured Monica and thought of her family’s grief. He returned to the bed and yanked the comforter away from the headboard, and the pillows flew across the mattress, followed by the produce box.

  Back in the bathroom, he draped the comforter over the machine and scooped it up, transforming the bedspread into a makeshift cloth sack. He hoisted it out, careful to not drip the gunk onto his feet as he hurried to the center of the room.

  Gavin returned to the bathroom, washed the slime from his arm, and then urinated. Halfway through, he heard the unmistakable clacking of the typewriter. He zipped up and rushed back into the suite in time to see twitching movements under the comforter. When he pulled back the covering, the typed question shocked him.

  WHO IS THE FROG, AND WHO IS DISSECTING?

  Gavin jumped back from the machine. He’d never told anyone about that scene with the frog. Even as his mother had applied ice to his swollen face and busted lip, he hadn’t told her what he’d done to provoke the older boys into beating him.

  Knowing that she could access his dreams, his thoughts, and his memories terrified him. How could he expect to outsmart someone who knew his thoughts?

  He unfolded the towel that was twisted into an origami swan shape.

  “No more typing!” he yelled while wedging it into the opening between the typewriter’s hammers and the platen against the paper.

  The high-pitched chirping of the hotel phone on the nightstand startled him.

  “Who could that be?”

  He eyed the bundle of the typewriter and comforter on the floor as he stepped around it. He allowed the phone to ring once more before removing it from the base.

  “Hello, who is this?”

  “Uh, Mr. Curtis, this is the front desk. You have a visitor—a reporter by the name of Horace Whetstone.”

  Oh God, she’s here!

  His heart raced with panic. “Tell her that she has to leave here right now. She has to go right now! It’s not safe for her to be here!”

  The character of Horace Whetstone had pursued Damien Marksman for the entirety of his fictional detective career. Whetstone, an obnoxious reporter who was always on the heels of the vampire warlock, threatened to find the evidence that would reveal Damien for who and what he really was. Josephine was in the lobby and was using Horace’s name for grins.

  “Sir, I said Horace, a man—an older gentleman.”

  “A man?” Gavin asked, completely confused. “Who could—”

  “Yes, sir. A man in biker clothing.”

  “A biker?” Gavin tried to rearrange the pieces of the puzzle in his mind to make them fit. Then he recognized the man’s voice in the background of the call. “Billy?” He closed his eyes and pressed the receiver to his ear. The man on the other end demanded that the desk clerk give him the phone. Billy Cavanaugh’s rough baritone was unmistakable.

  What’s he doing here?

  He turned to look at the machine on the floor and felt clammy.

  “Sir, he’s very insistent about seeing you, but I can have security—”

  “What? No. Wait, he doesn’t know which room I’m in, right?”

  “No, sir, of course not.”

  “Good, then tell him to… “ Gavin pounded his forehead with his fist. “Just tell him I’ll be right down to see him.”

  He slammed the phone down as the clerk said, “Very good, sir.”

  He ran to the elevator and rushed inside as soon as it opened. He had to get Billy and whoever was with him to leave—to escape to safety.

  When the doors opened on the fifth floor, Gavin repeatedly tapped at the button to close them again while blocking the other guests’ access inside. “Sorry, but it’s an emergency.”

  Two young children dressed in bathing suits jumped back to hide behind their mother, and she lifted oversized sunglasses as she shouted, “You’re a jerk, mister!”

  Gavin pressed the button again, and the door slid shut.

  As he rode down the final floors, he realized that his logic about getting his visitors to safety was flawed. Torri had been able to get to Monica thousands of miles away. She’d certainly be able to harm Billy and whoever was with him if she wanted to, wherever they went.

  But he still felt a sense of urgency. He thought about how every minute wasted was a minute that Torri grew stronger. Every second that slipped away moved them closer to her so-called “arrival” from whatever realm of existence she presently occupied. He could feel it happening. Like an undertow in his psyche, the device pulled at him. No longer could he ignore the unsettling sensation of something rifling through his mind as if
thumbing through a Rolodex. That something was a someone—Torri Barta.

  Madame Kovács had warned him that her miscalculated incantation upon the device would somehow commandeer its user. He thought of how she’d told him that it was establishing a pathway for Torri to cross between her world and this one. He couldn’t deny that the process had already begun within him, but what could be done to stop its progress? How could he sever this vile connection—or at least stop the waterwheel of his mind from turning and supplying the energy for her to transform?

  He needed time to think, and Billy and company were an obstacle at the moment—an obstacle he had to get rid of urgently.

  The elevator opened, and he hurried to the front desk at a speed that turned heads. Leaning over the counter, just as the clerk had told him, was a man in his mid-seventies dressed in leather chaps, a denim jacket, and harness boots. He turned and presented a model’s stance as Gavin approached. “Like my duds?”

  “Billy, where’s Jo?” he asked in a huff.

  The older man extended a veiny but strong and steady hand to Gavin, saying, “That Horace Whetstone bit was pretty good, huh?”

  Gavin ignored the gesture, scanning the area for Josephine. “Where’s Jo? Is Beverly with you?”

  Billy lowered his hand and tugged at his fingerless gloves. “Josephine’s not here, Sport. You made her promise not to come check on you, so she sent me instead.” He pointed the wadded gloves in the younger man’s direction. “I’ve gotta say, though, you don’t look so hot. You’re as pale as a sheet, like you’ve seen a ghost or something.”

  “I sorta have. Look, I can’t explain, but it’s really not a good idea for you to be here right now.”

  Noticing the clerk at the counter leaning in to listen, he put a hand on Billy’s back and guided him away from the desk. “I know this is kind of rude, and I’ll explain when I have the chance, but let me get you a cab back to the airport.”

  As they passed an alcove of lobby couches, Billy made a break for it and slumped down into a posh couch. “I’m not going to the airport.”