Authors: Aric Davis
CHAPTER 67
“I need to call the police,” said Mrs. Martin.
She let go of Cynthia’s hands and then lit a cigarette. “I need to call the police.”
Mrs. Martin had said the same thing twice, but Cynthia didn’t know why, nor did she know why Mrs. Martin didn’t pick up the phone.
“Need to call the police,” repeated Mrs. Martin again, smoke pouring from her mouth. “I can call your mother. We can tell her that we need to run, that we need to go right now. We can tell her where to meet up with us. She has a good head on her shoulders, and we can convince her without telling her about those men in the apartment.” Mrs. Martin frowned. “The important thing is to get as far away from them as possible. I can’t imagine why they’re here, but as long as they are, none of us are safe.”
Across the room, Stanley began barking on the couch the dogs were sharing, loud yips to show he was sharing in their distress, and then Libby began to sound off as well. As clear as day, Cynthia heard
/ Shut up / Shut up /
in her head. The dogs both dropped to the floor, falling from the couch as though they’d been felled by gunfire. Cynthia ran to them, upsetting her chair as she left the table. The dogs were tottering up onto their stubby legs as she got to them, both listing like drunks on the first Friday of the month.
“What did you do?” Cynthia asked. “How could you hurt them?”
“I didn’t mean to,” said Mrs. Martin.
Cynthia was cowering on the floor with the whining dogs swirling around her.
“We’ll go to your apartment,” said Mrs. Martin. “We can hide there. No one will think to look there. Your mother gave me a key.”
“OK.” Cynthia stood, hoisting a dog under each arm.
Mrs. Martin nodded quickly, discharging smoke as her head bobbled up and down. “Now,” she said. “We need to leave now.”
Grabbing her cordless phone from its charger, she darted to the front door, calling to Cynthia to hurry. Cynthia did as she was told, the placated dogs still under her arms, and followed Mrs. Martin outside.
The sun was shining as they walked into the light, the wind blowing lightly and the temperature a comfortable eighty degrees. Mrs. Martin had already started up the steps to their apartment when Cynthia saw Mom’s car pull in front of the building. Cynthia stopped and turned in time to see Mom spill from the driver’s side and begin running toward her. A man was following her, a man that Cynthia took a second to realize was Dad.
“Run,” said Mom as she charged toward her, but Cynthia’s feet were bolted to the ground, just as her eyes were locked to the gun that Dad was holding in his right hand.
Dad hates guns
, she thought, but that didn’t seem to matter anymore.
“Not one more step,” Dad said.
Mom did as he said, coming to a full, wide-eyed halt, as though she shared Cynthia’s view of the gun Dad had now leveled at the back of her head.
“We’re going on a little ride,” Dad said. “All four of us, including the old bitch on the steps. C’mon, it’s time to get in the car, Cynthia.”
No one moved. They were frozen like statues where they stood, though Cynthia could hear Mrs. Martin on the phone behind her, whispering something to what Cynthia hoped was the police.
“I said get in the fucking car!” screamed Dad, and then Cynthia was leaping up into the map of North Harbor, the sound of a gunshot chasing her into the tranquility of their place in the sky.
Cynthia had no time to process what the gunshot meant or even that Dad had actually shot the gun at all. She had work to do. She dove from the sky to Dad, lurched to a stop just above him and then buried her hands deep in the black and purple threads flaying the air above him. She began to weave—not as Mrs. Martin had taught her, not for peace or to help him, but to just make him stop. Cynthia could see Mom falling slowly beneath her, a fan of blood still held in the air like a halo around her head, but she kept on—no longer working as a weaver but cutting as a Moirai.
CHAPTER 68
Darryl completed the last of the transactions and then gave Robert a hard push so that the boy would run.
Darryl had left Robert with ten thousand dollars because he thought the kid might have a shot with that much of a stake and granted it to him out of thanks. Of course, their work over the last week had netted Darryl just shy of two million dollars and would be the ruin of Robert’s family, and especially his father. Two million. Not bad for a little bit of work. Darryl gave a last look around the apartment. They were leaving everything but the computer. Not that it mattered. They owned nothing but junk and would have replaced it all, anyway.
“Are you sure we have to leave?” Terry asked, and Darryl didn’t dignify his question with a response. Terry was still coming to grips with what had happened the night before, and Darryl wasn’t surprised that his friend was a mess.
“Yes, I’m sure,” said Darryl as he walked to the door. Terry followed him, a sheepish look on his face. “Get in the truck, and let’s get the hell out of here. I’ve had enough of Michigan and enough of this damn apartment to last me a lifetime.”
Darryl climbed into the truck and had the engine turned over by the time Terry hopped into the passenger seat. Feeling better by the second, he backed out, then hit the brakes and jammed it into drive to leave North Harbor, sure that he would never see it again. And then he saw them.
Just a few buildings down from their apartment there was a woman facedown on the ground, a growing pool of blood collecting around her head, and a man standing over her and twitching as though he’d stuck his finger into an electrical socket. Darryl didn’t care about any of that, and though he could hear Terry speaking next to him, he couldn’t understand a word he was saying.
Standing not ten feet from the twitching man was a little girl.
The girl looked as serene as the man looked pained, and Darryl knew that she was bending the poor bastard. Just past her, an old woman was on the phone, and suddenly everything made sense.
Darryl threw the truck into park and ran from it, while behind him Terry screamed, “What are you doing?”
Darryl ignored his friend, his eyes locked on the bitch on her phone as he flew toward the little girl. The old woman knew who he was—he could see that from her popping eyes—and the only way she’d know him would be if she was the one who’d invaded his head along with the girl. Darryl gave her an extra-stiff push for that effrontery. The phone clattered to the concrete stoop before the woman made it, and then they both bounced to the bottom of the stone steps. Darryl figured she was probably dead, given the ugly sounds she made on her trip to the sidewalk, but he could hear her moaning as he walked to the little girl. He guessed her moans would be only temporary.
Darryl wrapped his arms around the girl, hoisted her up like a junior-sized mannequin, and walked past the twitching man to the truck.
“You’re driving,” he said to Terry as he heaved the girl into the truck, then followed after her. Terry slid over behind the wheel but then fell still, as though he’d come unplugged.
“Drive,” growled Darryl, pissed at his stalled-out friend, but also feeling a rising surge of elation. He’d fucking caught one. This would be worlds better than anything that could be done on a computer. North Harbor had offered up a lovely parting gift: his own little monster, right here in their truck.
“Terry, fucking drive,” said Darryl again, but Terry remained transfixed by the man dancing on the pavement.
Then both of them were looking past him at the broken old woman, who was somehow trying to rise.
“Drive, Terry!” shouted Darryl, this time smacking him across the head, jolting both Terry and the truck into motion.
Darryl cradled the little girl in his arms, knowing that she’d be back soon. Her topknot was asleep because she was gone, and he began to bend his way into her, already preparing for her to attempt to reject what was happening to her.
CHAPTER 69
The dogs had been with her.
Cynthia remembered feeling the dogs scratching and biting alongside her at the ugly strands above Dad, and then not only could she feel them, she could see them. The dogs were an opaque brown, there but not, and they were digging their teeth in with relish against the black strands. Cynthia urged them on, soothing the dogs as she chopped at her father. It was hard work, awful work, only made worse by the gunshot that was still echoing in his mind and through the strands. Cynthia refused to look over her shoulder, refused to look at the dogs at their work, and refused to look through Dad’s eyes. Instead of looking, she cut, and it took very little time to realize that this was what she was born for.
Then the world had begun to swirl as Cynthia worked, and she’d felt like she was being yanked underwater. Dad began to fall away. Cynthia was being torn away from him, the dogs still visible and then gone. She saw the map, and then the world snapped to black. Cynthia couldn’t breathe. She was trapped underwater, frozen in a dream that refused to end.
Now Cynthia came to on the bench seat of a truck. She had no idea where she was or what was happening, and then she looked to her left and saw that the man from the apartment, the one with all of the purple, was driving. Turning her head the other way, she saw the other man—the computer man who could weave—staring down at her.
“We need to talk,” said the man. “Why don’t you start by telling me your name?”
“Cynthia,” said Cynthia, her voice felt like it was coming from a million miles away, and she had the beginning stages of a whopper of a headache blooming, but none of that was important.
Dad killed Mom, and I killed him
,
thought Cynthia, and the realization was hell. She felt adrift, utterly lost, and suddenly her presence in the truck with the two strangers didn’t matter at all.
I may as well be dead, too.
“Nice to meet you, Cynthia. My name’s Darryl. Terry is driving.”
Darryl smiled at her, and Cynthia felt tears begin to streak down her cheeks. She hated that she was crying, hated that she was in the truck, and she hated these men. Most of all, she hated herself. If she’d thought more quickly, worked faster, Mom would be OK. If she’d been able to help Dad at Maryanne’s birthday party, they might both still be alive.
“No tears,” said Darryl, wiping her cheeks with his fingertips.
Cynthia felt a glowing wave pass over her, soothing her headache and making her misery feel like just a passing thing.
“That should help a bit,” said Darryl, smiling down at her, and Cynthia realized with a start that he was weaving with her.
“Stop,” said Cynthia. She wanted to feel sad—that was what was supposed to happen. She thought about Mom and Dad, about the fight at Nan and Pop’s after the stupid trip to Vegas that had started it all, but none of it mattered right now. She felt good, oddly placated in the middle of the front seat.
“More cops going the other way,” said Terry.
“Fine with me, as long as they don’t turn around,” said Darryl as he stroked Cynthia’s hair. “That is just fine by me, but we’re going to need a new truck very soon.” He looked down at Cynthia and said, “Somehow, I don’t think that’s going to be an issue.”
“I won’t help you,” said Cynthia, smiling despite the pain, her lips pulled back from her teeth in a grin even though she hated these men.
“Well,” said Darryl, “you really won’t have a choice, but we’ll get to all of that later. What I’m really interested in, however, is why in the fuck you and that old woman were watching me.”
Cynthia shook her head, not only because she didn’t want to tell him, but because she couldn’t. She’d had no good reason for looking into their apartment in the first place, except out of curiosity, and it seemed ridiculous now.
“I don’t know,” said Cynthia, and Darryl nodded.
“I’ll expect a better answer later,” said Darryl. “I know you’re upset, both with us and the situation, but I need you to listen to me. Do not under any circumstances try to bend Terry or myself. If you do, I will kill you, and it will be bad. Do you understand?”
“What’s ‘bending’?”
“That crap where you broke into my mind,” said Darryl. “All that sneaking around you and that old witch were up to, that’s bending.”
“Mrs. Martin called it weaving.”
“Oh, honey, it doesn’t deserve a name nearly as pretty as that,” said Darryl. “Bending is lying, cheating, and stealing, and nothing else. Your friend might have wanted to paint a big bow on it, but that doesn’t make it anything better than what it is.” Darryl paused as two more police cars rocketed past them, followed by three black Suburbans and a black cargo van. Darryl shuddered slightly as they passed and then turned to watch them in the back window of the truck. When they were out of sight, he turned back to Cynthia. “Anyways, no bending, no weaving, none of that shit unless I tell you to.”
“Or I do,” said Terry, and at once Cynthia could hear Darryl in her head.
/ You don’t listen to him / You listen to me /
CHAPTER 70
Mrs. Martin stared at Cynthia’s bastard father, at rest at last on the pavement.
He was dead, there was no question of that—not that it was going to do her or Ruth much good.
Mrs. Martin could feel that things in her were broken, badly broken, and she knew that she needed to go. They were coming. She’d known they would when she’d used the phone, but she’d thought she and the girl might have been able to hide. Now the girl was gone and the sirens were getting louder and louder, closer and closer, and it was all Mrs. Martin could do to prop herself into a sitting position and pull her clove cigarettes from her pocket. She lit one, stuck the thing in her mouth, and drew off of it, unable to tear her eyes away from the bodies of Cynthia’s parents.
“Shit,” said Mrs. Martin, blood speckling her cigarette.
The sirens’ din was growing in the distance, but there was nothing to do about that but wait—wait and hope that whatever was broken in her could be fixed.
At last Mrs. Martin saw the first responders pulling in, men dressed in blue carrying guns and running about. She drew off of her cigarette and then felt it fall from her lips. It didn’t matter. The world was going black, but that was all right; it was her time.
“I’ve got three over here,” cried one of the cops. “Three down!” Mrs. Martin saw him through blurry eyes, watched as he came to her, knelt down. “Help is on the way,” he said. “Hold tight.”
Mrs. Martin didn’t say anything in response; she just released the last of her smoke. Ambulances, more policemen, and a fire truck pulled into the apartment parking lot, and Mrs. Martin watched as EMTs ran to the Robinsons and then to her. The EMTs sounded like they were speaking in code, and then one of them gave her a shot, and Mrs. Martin felt the left side of her body go numb.
That fucker ran a number on you, the verdammter Jude
,
thought Mrs. Martin, the old words mixing with the new ones, and memories of the camps coming back through the pain.
Mrs. Martin watched a stretcher pull alongside of her and then felt them lifting her onto it. Her head lolled to the side, the pain coming in diminishing waves now, and she glanced back to the parking lot as she was drawn to the ambulance. Mrs. Martin watched three black SUVs pull into the lot, followed by a van, and she could feel her heart rate quicken. After a moment’s discussion with these interlopers, the pilots of her stretcher pulled her past the ambulance and toward the gaping maw of the back of the van. It was full of noisy and festively lit medical equipment, and two men wearing foreign yet terrifyingly familiar visored helmets were hunched over within it, waiting. Mrs. Martin tried to weave one of the men pushing the cart, tried to tell him that she was the wrong one, that the dead woman was who they wanted, but she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t connect.
The EMTs pushed her stretcher with rather cruel, rattling abruptness into the van, and then the doors slammed shut.
“Please let me go,” said Mrs. Martin, but instead of answering her, one of the visored men turned to her with a syringe full of purple liquid. “Please,” said Mrs. Martin, and then the man stuck the needle into her arm and pushed the plunger. “Please,” said Mrs. Martin again as the world went gray and then faded to black.