Nightscape

by Stephen R. George

  Back on the road, Shep was more watchful. He kept glancing in the rearview mirror, the side mirrors, at cars that sped past them.

  “What is it?”

  “Just being careful.”

  They drove for another fifteen minutes, the city changing its face around them.

  “McDonald’s okay?”

  “Sure,” Evan said.

  “Whatever,” Bonnie agreed.

  Shep took the exit. As they walked into the restaurant, Bonnie was struck by how much they must look like a family, and the thought disturbed her. At the table, she sat Evan on her side. Shep sat across from her.

  He opened his cheeseburger and half of it disappeared in a single bite.

  “You don’t trust me,” he said around the mouthful.

  “I don’t know you very well.”

  “Well enough. You just don’t trust me. Why?”

  Bonnie sipped her coffee. Evan was looking up at her, as eager for an answer, apparently, as Shep Thomas himself.

  “I don’t know. I thought you were dangerous.”

  “I guess I am.” He grinned stupidly. “But I saved your ass.”

  “You were following me. You followed us this morning. I don’t like being followed.”

  “I wasn’t the only one following you. Those bastards seemed to know exactly when you left your house. They picked you up on the freeway. There were others waiting downtown, and in the skyways. If I didn’t know better, and maybe I don’t, I’d say you must have phoned ahead to let them know you were coming.”

  “But I didn’t! I didn’t even know we were followed!”

  “So, what spooked you?”

  “I saw my ex-husband.”

  “The tall dark one?”

  Hearing him say it, she knew it had really happened, that she hadn’t simply imagined it. ? “He was standing in the skyway, waiting for us.”

  “Why did you run?”

  “Because…”

  For a moment, she didn’t know. Under normal circumstances, she should have been glad to see Harris. Life could return to normal.

  “My dad wants to hurt me,” Evan said.

  “He does, huh?”

  “We don’t know that,” Bonnie said quickly.

  “I’d bet on it,” Shep said.

  “And what, exactly, do you know about it?”

  He munched on his burger, sipped his drink, wiped his lips. He looked at her with careful, watchful eyes.

  “Your ex-husband is involved with the group I’m looking for.”

  “What group is that?”

  ‘The one I told you about.”

  “You mean, the one that the police have never heard of, that the cult experts have never heard of, that nobody has heard of but you?”

  “And you.”

  Bonnie sipped her coffee. “I don’t know anything.”

  “Aw, quit being so difficult about this. You know you’ve been followed. You know something is going on. When I talked to you before, you were terrified. Today, you almost had a heart attack. Don’t pretend with me.”

  Bonnie calmed herself with a deep breath.

  “I thank you for helping us this morning.”

  “It was my pleasure.”

  “But now, I’d thank you to take us home.”

  “Mom!”

  “It’s okay, sweetheart. We’ll call the police. We’ll tell them what happened.”

  “You think they’ll help you now? Why haven’t they done anything so far?”

  “They’ll do something when I tell them about Harris.”

  “They’ll tell you they’re sorry, but they won’t do anything until something happens. I know the police. That’s the way it works. You can’t expect them to stand guard over you.”

  “Listen,” Bonnie said, exasperated and confused, “I don’t know what you want of me.”

  “Just to help.”

  “To help me what? You want to use me and Evan, that’s it, isn’t it?”

  “Partly, yes.”

  “I don’t want to be used.”

  “Why weren’t you at work today?”

  “I had the day off.”

  “Really?”

  Bonnie sighed. “I was asked to take the day off.”

  “This whole thing is screwing with your life, isn’t it? You can’t get the police to help you. You don’t even know if there’s anything going on. You don’t know what to do next.”

  He was right on the money. Bonnie nodded reluctantly. She reached out and squeezed Evan’s hand.

  “Well, I’m here to say I believe you. I know you’re telling the truth. I know they’re after you. I’ve seen them. I’m willing to help you, because helping you will help me. That’s all. You can leave me to watch from a distance if you like, which is what I’ve been doing, and in the end I’ll lock onto these guys, because they’re not going to leave you alone. But then I might not be able to help you. Then, I’d really be using you.”

  Bonnie stared at him, now getting angry. Everything seemed to be pressing in on her, demanding something of her.

  “Let me in,” Shep said, “and I can help all of us.”

  “Do you want money? I don’t have much. But I could scrape up something.”

  “I don’t want any money.”

  “You don’t?”

  “I told you, I’m doing this for my brother. My brother, and me. If I can help you along the way, then fine.”

  The idea of somebody believing her, believing what had been happening, believing Evan’s stories, was so appealing, that she knew he had won her over.

  “That would be okay,” Bonnie said.

  “Okay, it’s settled.”

  He finished off his drink and leaned back in his seat. Bonnie watched him and felt an off-color sense of admiration, the same she had once felt for Bonnie and Clyde, or for the men who had robbed the armored car last year and got away with millions. He smiled at her and absently rubbed a bandage on his neck. The skin there was pink and sore looking. His eyes narrowed as he rubbed it.

  And as he touched it, Evan, in the seat beside her, looking out the window at the parking lot, sunlight warming his face, lifted his own hand to rub his neck in the identical place. Bonnie stared at the boy, then back at Shep, who was now smiling, lost in thought.

  She suppressed a shudder and sipped her cooling coffee.

  Shep walked around the house, looking in every room. Back in the kitchen he sat down and picked up the beer Bonnie had opened for him.

  “Nice little place.”

  Bonnie knew a false compliment when she heard one. She did not reply. Evan came through from the living room and sat down at the table.

  “What do you need to know?” Bonnie asked.

  “Are you sure you feel up to talking about it? We could do this later.”

  “Now is good.”

  Evan rubbed his hands together. He was looking down at the table, and would not make eye contact with Shep or her. Bonnie felt guilty. Was she putting the boy through this for nothing?

  “Then I need to know everything,” Shep said. “Tell me like a story, from the beginning.”

  “Me first?” Bonnie asked.

  “Sure.”

  She sipped from her own beer. Slowly, she told him everything that had happened, from being called at work by Peterson, taken to the hospital, bringing Evan home, the boy’s fears, how she thought she had been followed in the mall by the drooling boy/man, through trying to convince the police that something was wrong with Evan, to now.

  Shep listened carefully, never taking his eyes from her face.

  “The only time you know for certain that you were followed, was in the mall?”

  “I don’t even know that for certain. We could have been following him. Evan was watching everybody, and some of that rubbed off on me.”

  “Nope. I’ve seen the one you’re talking about.”

  Bonnie felt a chill as he said that. So she had been right all along!

  “Anything else? That’s it? An
ything else strange happen in the last while?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  Bonnie felt as if a great weight had been lifted from her. The story had needed to be told, and to somebody who listened and believed.

  “What about you, Evan?” Shep asked. “How about your story?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “The police psychologist thinks he’s suffering from amnesia due to the car accident, but it should go away. He’s got a blank space in his memory.”

  “Let him tell me himself. Tell me what you do remember, Evan. Even little bits.”

  Evan frowned. “I remember a lady with red hair.”

  Shep sat up straight.

  “You’ve met her?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I just dreamed her.”

  “What is it?” Bonnie asked.

  “She’s the one who had your photographs. She’s the key to all of this, I know it. What do you remember about her?”

  “She wants to kiss me. She keeps touching me.”

  “You mean in your dream?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He gets his memories mixed up with the dreams a little, I think,” Bonnie said.

  “Tell me what else you remember, Evan.”

  “I remember these two girls kissing, and their faces are falling off.” As he said this he scratched his belly.

  “The psychologist thinks he might have picked that up from television.”

  “I did not! I saw it!”

  “And what else?”

  “The boy. The boy/man. He’s fat, and he drools. I remember him. I think his name is Henry.”

  “Henry?”

  “He might be the one we saw in the mall,” Bonnie said.

  “Let Evan tell me,” Shep said firmly.

  “It’s him,” Evan said.

  “Do you know who these people are?”

  “Sure. They’re part of it.”

  “Part of what?”

  Evan shrugged. “The thing.”

  “The cult?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you know why they’re looking for you?”

  “Because my daddy is part of it, and he wants me to be part of it.”

  “Did he tell you that?”

  “Uh huh.”

  Bonnie could hardly breathe. Evan had never said any of this to her. Or perhaps she had not asked. She had not known what to ask.

  Shep rubbed his neck.

  “What are your dreams like, Evan?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are they scary?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Could you tell me one of them? What happens?”

  Evan looked down, lips pursed, then looked up at Bonnie. Bonnie nodded at him. He looked back at Shep.

  “I wake up and I’m in this room and I’m like floating around or spinning and those people are there, the fat boy and the lady with the red hair and my daddy, and they tell me to hurry and come be with them, and then she tries to kiss me and I wake up back in my own room.”

  Shep was white as a sheet, and he stood abruptly as Evan stopped speaking. His hand knocked his beer, and it spilled across the table.

  “Jesus, I’m sorry,” he said.

  “That’s okay, I’ll get it.”

  Bonnie got a towel and wiped up the spilled beer. Shep sat down again and stared at Evan. The boy stared back.

  “What’s wrong?” Bonnie asked.

  “Nothing,” Shep said. “Nothing.”

  Bonnie sat down.

  “Can you help us?”

  “Yes. I think so. Better than the police can, anyway.”

  He looked at Bonnie and smiled, and whatever had been bothering him was obviously gone, or under control. Bonnie stood.

  “I’m going to call the doctor. I want to get his rash looked at.”

  Evan squirmed in his seat. “It’s getting better, Mom.”

  “Maybe put it off for a little while,” Shep said. “You don’t want to leave the house right now, do you? I have to go for now.”

  “Go?”

  “Just for an hour or so. I have to pick up some things, to help make this place safer. I’ll be back soon.”

  He reached behind him, inside his light jacket, and pulled out a gun.

  “What is that?”

  “It’s a gun. I’m going to leave it here. It’s set to go. Just point and pull the trigger. There are fifteen rounds, including the one in the chamber. It will do the job.”

  “Take it away. I don’t want it.”

  “These people are after Evan. I don’t know why, but if they get their hands on him, they may do things to him that neither of you want to think about. If anybody tries to get in here, point that at them and fire. These people are very strange. Believe me. Shoot first, and we’ll ask the questions later.”

  Before Bonnie could answer, he put the gun down on the table, stood, and went to the door. Bonnie followed him.

  “I’ll be back soon.”

  Bonnie went back to the kitchen. Evan was holding the gun, staring into the barrel.

  “Give me that!”

  She pulled it from his hands and put it on top of the fridge, repulsed by the touch of it. Evan watched her, confused.

  “Can I go outside?”

  “Not yet. Wait until Mr. Thomas gets back.”

  “Will he stop them? Will he stop Daddy?”

  “I don’t know,” Bonnie said. “I hope so.”

  Shep drove around the block three times, then checked the adjacent streets. The neighborhood was quiet, for now. But he had a hard time concentrating. His thoughts were elsewhere. On what the boy had said.

  It didn’t make sense. None of it.

  Dreams and fragments of memory. Nothing to build a picture. Nothing to indicate exactly what he was up against. But enough to corroborate what he already knew.

  This was a strange group.

  He reached his motel within half an hour. Inside the hot room, he poured himself a drink. He downed it and poured another.

  It was Evan’s dream that had disturbed him most. Hanging in a room, floating, the people around him.

  Just like the dream he’d had in the car that night, while staking out the house.

  “Jesus Christ.”

  Something was going on. Something was happening to him. Something so far out of his normal experience that he did not know how to approach it.

  After finishing the second drink, he gathered the things he needed, unhooking them from where he’d set them up, packing them into boxes. When he finished, he lay down on the bed, sweating and dizzy.

  His neck ached. He rubbed the bandage, and beneath it felt the scratch, swollen and painful.

  He lay quietly for a few minutes, until he felt better, then carried the boxes out to the car and loaded them in the trunk.

  As he climbed into the car, the wiry old broad from the front desk approached him.

  “Tonight your last night?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  “Let me know before tomorrow. We can work out another deal if you’re going to be a few more days.”

  Shep nodded. Sweat spilled off his forehead. He felt nauseated.

  “You okay?”

  “Sure. Fine.”

  He started the car, backed up in a spray of gravel, and drove out to the road.

  He was not okay. For the first time since Mom had died he wondered what in hell he was doing, and feared that he might be far, far out of his depth.

  With a groan he stepped on the gas and roared into traffic.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Bonnie opened the front door as Shep came up the steps with a cardboard box in his arms. She could see tangled colored wires inside the box, and light bulbs, and switches of some sort. He had been gone for slightly more than an hour.

  “What’s this for?”

  “Protection.”

  He went back to the car for another box. She held the door open for him and he took this one directly
into the living room. Bonnie tried to pick up the first box, but it barely budged at the effort. Shep nudged her aside and hefted it easily.

  “Neighborhood seems quiet,” he said. “No sign of anybody staking the place out.”

  “Thank God.”

  “But I wouldn’t expect that until tonight. Where’s Evan?”

  “In his room. I wouldn’t let him go out until you got here.”

  “Don’t let him out at all. Not yet.”

  “Then you tell him.”

  “If you like, I will.”

  He sat down heavily on one end of the sofa. His face was shiny with sweat. He took a deep breath, and when he let it out his shoulders slumped.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Just tired.”

  “Were you watching us last night?”

  “Yes.”

  “All night?”

  “Most of it.”

  “No wonder you’re tired. If you tell me what to do, you could take a nap.”

  He looked at her thoughtfully. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

  “Sounds like you’re the one who doesn’t trust me.”

  He laughed. “You’re right. I need some sleep.” He stood up with a groan and yawned. “Where’s the boy’s room?”

  “Second on the left down the hallway.”

  She followed him to the door, but stayed out of sight when he knocked and stuck his head in.

  “How are you doing, kid?”

  “Okay,” came Evan’s reply.

  “Your mom’s right. Better not to go out for a while. Not today, anyway. Besides, it’s getting late. Maybe tomorrow.”

  “Okay.”

  “Looks like you got plenty to do in here, anyway.”

  “Can you stop them?”

  “I think so,” Shep said. “I guess we’ll soon see.” He closed the door and shrugged at Bonnie. “Where can I sleep?”

  “My room’s back here.”

  She opened the master bedroom door for him. He walked past her and lay himself carefully on the bed. He groaned softly.

  “Before you go under, is there something I should do?”

  “Lock the doors,” he said without opening his eyes. “Keep the lights on. If something happens, just scream.”

  “That’s it?”

  “If the scream doesn’t wake me up, I guess you’ll have to use the gun.”