He took out the plastic card first and turned it over in his hands. It had the pyramidal logo of the Luxor Hotel on it and he recognized it as the keycard for a room. But it had no number or any other sort of indication as to what room it might open. He shrugged and set it aside.
Then he retrieved the document, a single sheet of thin paper, printed on both sides in black ink, with lots of boxes and check marks and information, like a tax form. He squinted at in the dim light and realized that it was not a tax form, but a medical record from two months back. For a child. A teenage girl named Celia Cagill. And in the upper corner, a street address for her family home.
He wondered why in the world someone would give him a child’s medical record and a keycard for a room at the Luxor. He shook his head. The night had only grown stranger since his incident in the alleyway. But then a thought occurred to him: maybe if he returned the medical form and the keycard, the family would be grateful enough to give him a few dollars. He could buy new supplies for Sunday’s mass, maybe even some dry clothes at the second-hand store.
He sat awhile longer in the cold, dark tunnel, listening to the hiss of the propane tank and warming his arms and legs, until he slowly drifted off to sleep.
He awoke a few hours later with his head and chest aching. After he felt well enough to travel, he got up, shut off the tank, and headed up the tunnel toward one of the places where he knew it exited into a street-side wash. In his hand, his withered old fingers still gripped the manila envelope with the keycard and the medical record that would hopefully be his meal tickets.
7
WHEN JOHN CAGILL OPENED THE front door of his two-story suburban home, the last thing he expected to see was a small, white-haired old man wearing a threadbare, stained white sweater, faded khaki slacks, and a tattered long coat, soaked from head to toe in rainwater, squinting up at him like a man staring painfully into the sun. The Cagills lived in a nice community on the west side of the city, just off I-95. It was not the sort of place in which one expected to see bums wandering the street, let alone knocking upon your door.
“Can I help you?”
The old man, still squinting, said something very quietly that John could not quite make out.
“I’m sorry?”
From inside, his wife’s voice called out, “Who is it, John?”
“I’m not sure,” he replied. He looked back down at the old man. “Who are you?”
“Salvatore Cortina,” the old man said quietly. “Please, I have something for you.”
John’s wife called out again. “John, whoever it is, tell them to come back tomorrow. You have to get Celia’s stuff to the hospital, and I have to get Haley to school.”
John nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said to Salvatore, “but I think–”
The old man frowned and his wrinkled hand pulled something from inside his threadbare coat: a manila envelope. “I found this,” he said, his voice wavering. “It’s about your daughter. I was hoping–”
John grabbed the envelope from the man and opened it hurriedly, analyzed the contents. A medical record about Celia? He looked up again. “Where did you get this?”
The old man’s eyes shifted and he looked at his feet as he talked. “Ah,” he said, slowly, “it’s a strange story. I was hoping for some food...” He trailed off.
John stared at the paper again. Sensitive stuff. Personal records. Their home address, Celia’s social security number, a list of her prior admissions to the hospital. Absently, he waved the old man inside. “Yeah,” he said, “sure. I can get you a bowl of cereal. I want to know where you found this?” He was concocting stories in his head of irresponsible hospital staff absently tossing out important records into the dumpster. He was thinking about the short-staffed Children’s Center, his dissatisfaction with their inability to truly diagnose Celia’s strange allergy. He was thinking lawsuits.
He stepped inside, eyes still glued to the paper. The old man in the dirty clothes followed close behind.
At the kitchen table, he spread out the remains of the manila envelope: several more papers like the first, documenting nearly everything about Celia and the family. “And you said you found these?” He didn’t look up for the old man’s reply.
“Uhh,” the old man stammered. “Yes.”
“Where?”
“Well that is a bit strange.”
John finally looked up, his impatience growing. “You said that already. These are very personal documents. Tell me where you got them.”
From the other room, his wife questioned why he had gotten sidetracked from gathering Celia’s things to take to the hospital.
“This man found some of Celia’s medical records,” he said.
The old man looked at John with a nervous smile and fidgeted with his hands. “The food...”
John’s wife came into the kitchen then, a querulous look on her face. “I’m sorry, he found what?”
John grabbed a handful of the papers and thrust them towards her. “Celia’s medical records,” he growled. “I’m thinking the hospital has been throwing them out, probably to cover their asses. They know we’re thinking of a lawsuit, I bet. Incompetent idiots. Can you believe this?” He looked at the old man again, who never ceased fidgeting. “Get him a bowl of cereal, will you? I want to hear this whole story.”
He nodded at Salvatore and made a ‘go on’ gesture with his hand, as his wife poured a bowl of cereal behind him. “Again, you found them...?”
It was then that something strange passed over the old man’s face. Salvatore blinked, three times, rapidly, almost as if he were having a minor stroke. His face muscles twitched. John could see his eyes defocusing, staring blankly.
“Mr. Cortina?” he prompted. He held up a page and shook it. “The papers...”
And then one last convulsing twitch of his eyebrows, a narrowing of the wrinkled old mouth, and Salvatore Cortina came back. His pupils widened and his eyes grew dark. His focus seemed suddenly greater than before. His lip curled into a lopsided grin.
“Mr. John Cagill,” he said, his voice smooth now, lacking any sort of trepidation, though still quiet. “What do you know about your daughter’s unusual illness? Specifics.”
“I’m sorry?” John felt confused. One second ago, an old, broken bum had sat before him. Now, this dirty-clothed man seemed to have complete control of his faculties. He seemed possessed of a stronger backbone, a serious edge that had not been there moments before.
Salvatore Cortina frowned. “The illness, Mr. Cagill. What do you know of it? What have the doctors determined?”
And then it dawned on John Cagill who, exactly, sat before him. This was no dirty old bum, half-mad and hungry. It was all an act. This was a private detective of the foulest kind–the kind that walks the streets, digging through trashcans, looking for lawsuits. Not wealthy or successful, but tenacious. Here was a man that knew exactly what he had found and wanted to get in on the lawsuit action against the hospital.
John nodded, as his wife placed the cereal bowl down in front of Salvatore. The old man pushed it to the side, uninterested. “I get it,” said John. “I see what’s going on here. How much do you want?”
Salvatore arched an eyebrow. “Money?” He laughed. “Oh, I’m not here for money. Just information. Now let’s get to the point, shall we?”
John shook his head. He wasn’t getting out of this easily, he realized. “Look, those are our personal records. I appreciate you bringing them here, but we’re not yet ready to take action–”
There was a screech of chair leg against floor and the old man was across the table, withered hands gripping the front of John’s shirt. Papers scattered. John’s wife gasped and dropped the glass milk bottle into the sink, where it shattered.
“The allergy,” roared Salvatore, his lips turned up in a foul sneer. His face was inches from John’s, and he could smell the old man’s rank breath. It smelled somehow of burning coals. “How does it manifest?”
That’s when Jo
hn noticed the change in the old man’s eyes. The pupils had vanished entirely and the eyeballs had become solid black. All the fight went out of him then. This was not natural. He heard his youngest daughter, Haley, calling his name from the other room.
“Stay in there, honey,” he said, his voice wavering. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his wife reaching for the large chef’s knife on the counter, next to the sink. “Baby, no, just be still–”
From deep in Salvatore’s throat came a growl. His black eyes flicked to one side. John watched in horror as a tendril of milk leapt up from the sink, looped itself around his wife’s wrist, and pulled her hand away from the knife. With a sudden, violent tug, the tendril yanked her clawed hand down into the sink and jammed it into the garbage disposal.
“The allergies, Mr. Cagill. You should be telling me about them, now.”
John shook his head, flabbergasted by the situation and panicked, all at once. “I- I don’t–”
Salvatore twitched one of the fingers gripping John’s collar and a second tentacle of milk leapt from the sink and bumped a switch into the ‘on’ position. There was the familiar grinding sound of the disposal and the sudden, bloodcurdling shriek as his wife’s hand became ground meat. Blood sprayed from the sink. The tentacle flipped the switch back ‘off.’
The words came tumbling out of John’s mouth, even as his wife wailed like an injured animal. “They- they say she has aquageni– an allergy to water. Rare. It only happens sometimes–”
The switch flipped again. Another horrible grinding sound. Another shriek. More blood. Switch off.
“When did it start?” asked Salvatore, his voice calmer now that the information was flowing. “As a child, or at puberty?”
“Puberty,” John replied. “Near her twelfth birthday.”
There was crying, then, and Haley came running into the kitchen.
John cried out, “No, honey, please go–”
Salvatore threw John back into his chair and stood, his spine elongating and allowing him stand to his full height, not the hunched form of an old man any longer. “No,” he said, grinning. “She should stay. We still have some things to discuss.” He turned and settled his gaze on the child, who stood frozen, eyes wide. “Perhaps she can contribute.”
“Wha- what do you want from us?”
Salvatore turned back to meet John’s frightened look. “Just information,” he said. “And the chance to thank you, personally.”
“For what?” asked John, weakly.
The old man’s grin deepened. “For taking such good care of my child,” he replied. “Many of the others died. This one lived. Because of you. Wonderful parents.”
John’s wife whimpered, hand still bloodied and wound into the disposal up nearly to her elbow.
“But,” said Salvatore, finally, as he craned his long neck to stare out the nearby window into the small suburban backyard. He seemed to be looking for something. “All good things must come to an end.” He considered that for a moment. His attention snapped back to John. “Or, perhaps, things are coming to a beginning. The pieces are moving. Snakes in the grass.” He chuckled. “And my time with you is growing short.”
Haley dropped to her knees on the kitchen floor and began to sob.
Salvatore ignored her. “Don’t worry,” he said, his voice a terrifying mix of calm assurance and insidious threat. “I only have a few more questions about Celia’s upbringing.”
John worked up the courage to squeak out, “And then what?”
Salvatore arched an eyebrow again. “Oh,” he said, “and then I suppose you’ll be free to go see your God.” He laughed again. “Though I don’t believe he’s speaking with your kind anymore.”
And with that, he flicked a finger and the garbage disposal burst to life again. The air filled with the sounds of grinding meat, screams, and blood. John began vomiting up answers and bile in equal measure, as Salvatore took his seat and dug into his bowl of cereal.
8
IN THE BLACKNESS BEYOND THIS realm, a creature stirred. In its world, it would have seemed a sudden awakening, but to our realm, it would have been a slow and inexorable motion, a thousand or more years of patient, quiet rousing, triggered by only the briefest of contacts. Where there was light, there was shadow, and mortal man stood in between, and for a singular moment, a shard of a broken creature had touched one of its counterparts.
The Render awoke.
Through the dust-black, windswept plains it lurched, seeking a weak point, a place where it might cross over. It was both an independent thing and a fragment, a microcosm of the macroscape that was its environ, a fractal within a fractal. It sensed now. It hunted.
Across an indeterminate distance and time, it could smell its quarry. It had a vaguely arachnoid shape, but was also amorphous and indistinct at times, and it felt the motions of our world, the lines and strings of fate that bound up the machinery of reality. It followed the patterns, traced the steps, and made its way to a point of entry.
It crossed over and, for the first time in its very long existence, encountered true light, the light that poured down upon the mortal shores. It recoiled, feeling its very first pangs of pain. It moved through this light, but with every sweeping beam or errant glow, its insubstantial form weakened a little. Its motions lacked strength. Only in the darkest, most pure of shadow did it retain its power.
With its limited understanding and emotion, the creature began to abhor the light. Every dim pool, every cutting strand of brightness caused it pain. Every slanting beam that sliced across the thing’s lines and form was a blade across insubstantial flesh, and it picked its paths carefully. It longed for night, for the coming black, and every second until then seemed an eternity.
The ends of its black appendages could touch down only in pools of shadow, forcing it to writhe and convolute its shape to avoid the light. To an onlooker in our world, it might have looked like the impossible shadow of some monstrous, invisible spider, or an irregular splash of black with a thousand legs dancing spasmodically upon the alley wall; a protean silhouette, independent of matter, moving of its own accord, sliding across surface and ground and object. It sensed its prey–the man–amidst the steel and concrete.
It moved with singular purpose.
9
TRENT PARKED THE MOVING VAN in a spot near the side door of the Children’s Center, near where he saw a couple of nurses smoking, backs against the outer wall of the building. He got out and walked over, Susan’s purse dangling from his left hand. The nurses–a man and woman–eyed him curiously.
Trent gestured at the cigarette in the man’s mouth. “Mind if I...?”
The male nurse hesitated at first, then shrugged and offered the pack. Trent took a cigarette. “Light?” he mumbled.
The woman flipped open a Zippo and Trent leaned down, cupping the cigarette’s tip to protect it from the rain-soaked wind.
“Goddamn it’s cold out here,” he mumbled. “Windy, too. Wish I had brought my jacket.”
“Yeah,” said the other man. “Supposed to pass by tomorrow though.”
Trent nodded and blew smoke out through his nostrils. After a few long drags, he took the cigarette from his mouth, looked at the glowing end for a second, and dropped it to the asphalt, where he ground it out with his cowboy boot.
He nodded and tipped his hat at them both. “Thanks,” he said, and headed for the side door.
“Wait,” said the woman. “You’re supposed to go through the front–”
Trent pointed up the side of the building. “Wife started today. Gotta delivery for her.” He held up the purse.
“Oh,” said the woman. And before she could say anything more, Trent had gone. The metal door clanged shut behind him.
She and her male cohort looked out over the parking lot and shuffled back and forth on the concrete sidewalk, shivering as they smoked. They watched a short, old man in a grimy white sweater moving toward them, his feet splashing through oily puddles on the asphalt.
Trent opened the door that led from the dingy, chemical-scented stairwell into the well-lit hall of the Children’s Center. He was immediately assailed by the sounds of crying, machines beeping quietly, doctors and patients and their parents chatting.
He hated hospitals; he had spent far too long in this very one after the crash, and the experience had left him with an irrational distaste for the white walls and the smiling, but haggard, staff. He had already made up his mind that he would not stay long; just give Susan the purse and the sandwich and then he would take off. Besides, he had a moving van to unpack, especially if the weather was going to get worse.
He wandered down the hall, purse dangling from his arm, listening for Susan’s voice. He finally heard it, coming from the room at the far end of the hallway.
“Yeah,” he heard her say. “But we’ll figure out what it is. Lots of stuff they haven’t tried, I’m sure.”
Trent walked around the corner of the doorframe and stopped at the foot of the bed. Susan was sitting in a chair at the bedside, talking with a thin, pale, blond girl wearing a hospital gown that looked way too baggy for her tiny frame. Susan looked up, saw Trent and then the purse he was carrying. She smiled.
“You’re the best.” She stood from her chair and walked over to give him a big hug. “You didn’t have to do that.”
He shrugged. “No problem. Gets me out of the house, right? There’s a convenience store sandwich in there. All I could afford.”
Susan pulled away from him and then gestured toward the girl in the bed. “This is Celia.”
The blond girl waved and forced a tired smile.
“Celia, this is my husband, Trent.”
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