The Last Tomorrow (45 page)

2

Carl packs his suitcase and leaves the boarding house. He drives home, parks in front of his house. He walks to the front door and stands facing it for a long time. He
doesn’t know if he can do this. He doesn’t think he can.

He reaches forward with a shaking hand, key extended. He pauses. He puts the key into the lock and turns it. He pushes the door open. It swings wide. He looks into his living room without
stepping inside. He can see Naomi everywhere. Pictures of her rest on end-tables, the curtains she bought cover the windows, the couch they shared sits in the middle of the room.

He looks down at the metal threshold, afraid to pass over it. He considers pulling the door closed and walking away. He doesn’t think he’s ready for this.

He steps forward – for the first time in months he steps into his home. Then he closes the door behind him and locks it.

He sets down the suitcase.

He already feels sick, and knows over the course of the next week it’ll only get worse. Much worse. There will be vomiting and diarrhea and tremendous leg cramps and probably he
won’t be able to sleep through any of it. There will come a time, he knows, when he thinks he might die and hopes he does. He will want to use so that he doesn’t die, but he won’t
use, and he won’t die either.

He’s determined to reach the other side of this.

He will.

And he’ll do it here, in his home, where almost every beautiful moment he ever experienced still lives.

He picks up a picture of Naomi. He looks at her beautiful heart-shaped face and her kind eyes. He loved her very much and he loves her still. He misses her and knows he won’t ever stop
missing her, not completely, and it hurts, but he knows that’s okay. It’s how you hold onto a memory; you accept the pain so you can keep the memory alive. You move on not by ignoring
pain, but by accepting it and carrying it with you to the new places you go.

He’ll get through this week because Naomi would want him to. She’d not want him to leap into the abyss after her. She’d not accept that. So he can’t either.

This week will be the most difficult week of his life. He knows that.

But it’s time.

Looking at his picture of Naomi, and thinking of his loss, he begins to cry. He gasps as the hurt washes over him. He tries to speak to her, to the photograph, but he’s incapable of words.
Words are insufficient. Words are for everyday experiences. Only childish grunts can properly express what he’s feeling – this raw loneliness and pain. But he lets himself feel it. He
lets himself cry.

It’s time.

3

Eugene sits up alone in the gray early morning. He looks around the bathroom, feeling confused and sick. His neck is sore from sleeping in the bathtub. He pushes his way out
from under his blanket and gets to his feet. He lights a cigarette and inhales deeply. He looks at himself in the bathroom mirror for a long time without knowing exactly what it is he’s
trying to catch a glimpse of, but he knows he isn’t seeing it and suspects it isn’t there. Whatever it is. He walks out to the living room, and through it to the balcony. He looks at
the shallow world he now inhabits, drained of color and life. He thinks of the dream he just awakened from, the nightmare. He thinks of the cannibals. He thinks of that small boy they murdered, and
the part they saved for him. He takes a drag from his cigarette. He knows who the boy was now, and supposes he always did.

But the boy is gone, even to the last part.

He flicks what remains of his cigarette out to the street.

This is what he’s left with.

Carl steps from the shower and dries off. He puts on slacks, a clean white shirt, and a coat. He combs his hair and looks at himself in the mirror. His cheeks are hollow, and
his eyes tired, but he’s healthy and his mind is clear.

He almost never thinks of junk these days, and when he does he finds he can push the thought aside. Sometimes it’s difficult, but he can do it – and every day it’s easier than
the last. He relapsed once, four months ago, but it won’t happen again. He won’t
let
it happen again.

He puts on a hat and steps into the October evening. It’s cool and crisp and wonderful. He inhales its scent and walks to his car. He gets inside and starts the engine. He drives toward
Bunker Hill with his window down, the chill autumn air blowing against his face.

He parks in front of a small house where a blonde woman in her thirties lives alone. She’s had husbands, but her first left and her second was murdered. She’s given birth, but her
son is missing and has been for months. She still reads the newspaper daily hoping to find him lurking between the lines in stories of burglary, armed robbery, and car theft. Sometimes she thinks
she sees evidence that he was there.

On Saturday nights Carl drives to her house, picks her up, and they roll through the streets while she looks for him. Probably she’ll never find him, he’s just one small boy in a
city of two million, but there’s a kind of bravery in her refusal to give up despite the odds, and there’s hope.

He’s learned a lot about that from her.

He steps from his car and walks up the path to her front door. He raises his fist, hesitates a moment, and knocks. After a while Candice pulls open the door. She smiles at him. He smiles back,
kisses the corner of her mouth.

‘Are you ready?’

She says she is, and steps outside.

Praise for Ryan David Jahn

‘
The Dispatcher
, which reads at a cracking pace, is a one-sitting, fist-in-mouth read’

Guardian

‘Reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy’s tales of vengeance,
The Dispatcher
is an impressively accomplished performance that never strains for mythic power but
nevertheless acquires it’

Sunday Times

‘Armed with a seat-of-the-pants plot that takes some audacious risks and prose that proves gritty and gruelling, Jahn has produced a thriller with a steely death-grip. I
walked into a tree reading it; no greater recommendation needed’

Financial Times

‘Jahn is the fastest rising star in the ever-competitive crime-fiction world and
The Dispatcher
is his third novel. It exhibits all the strengths of the previous
two, and then some. He is more a poet than a disciple of the hard-boiled, giving us one brutally swift, ultra-smart line after another. The characters live and breathe in all their wickedness,
helplessness or determination. And then there are the plots . . . talk about page-turning’

Book of the Week,
Daily Mirror

‘If it’s gritty noir and psychological drama that you are craving, then be sure that you check out
Low Life
. . . a gripping, adrenalin-filled
page-turner’

Sunday Herald

‘Fans of noirish tales of paranoia by the likes of Gil Brewer and David Goodis will enjoy the Kafkaesque twists and doom-laden tone’

Irish Times

‘At times I had to stop reading to catch my breath’

Bookseller

‘. . . There are those books that almost force you to put your feet in the starting blocks, place your fingers on the polyurethane, cock your head and wait for the gun.
The Dispatcher
is one of those books . . . If you only read one book tomorrow, make it this one’

GQ

‘Without doubt, the most outstanding novel I have read this year’

It’s a Crime

‘Jahn has written a real page-turner, well crafted with convincing characters and an involving plot based on how far people will go for their family’

We Love This Book

‘“The phone rings. It’s your daughter. She’s been dead for four months.” From that compulsive hook Jahn delivers a nerve-shredding thriller with
plenty of energy and a tight plot’

Big Issue

‘This twisting psychological mystery is a smarter-than-average crime thriller that seeks to challenge the reader at every turn’

Waterstone’s Books Quarterly

Ryan David Jahn grew up in Arizona, Texas and California. He left school at sixteen to work in a record store and subsequently joined the army. Since 2004 he has worked in
television and film. He currently lives in Kentucky with his wife Mary.

Also by Ryan David Jahn

LOW LIFE

First published in the UK 2012 by Macmillan

This electronic edition published 2012 by Macmillan
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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www.panmacmillan.com

ISBN 978-0-230-76650-1 EPUB

Copyright © Ryan David Jahn 2012

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