C.H.A.R.O.N., page 16
“We still have an hour before Wyrick’s ex-patients show—assuming any of them agree to come,” Brent said. “Why don’t you see who you can contact about taking in the refugees, and I’ll check in with Simon?”
Simon answered on the first ring. “Good timing—I was just going to call. You always have the most interesting world-ending calamities.”
“Gee, thanks—I think.”
“Okay, here’s what I’ve found so far. Shubin can’t be destroyed because they’re place spirits. But they can be weakened. I’m emailing you details. It’s folklore, so a lot of the instructions contradict each other, but the crux seems to be cleansing the Shubin’s lair.”
Brent felt his hopes plummet. “It’s a mine with hundreds of miles of tunnels. All of it is long abandoned and a death trap. That’s going to be tough.” He paused. “And the tulpas?”
“According to the lore, tulpas can be ‘unmade’ just like they can be created,” Simon told him. “At least, that’s true for regular ones. I don’t know what other magics Wyrick might have added to the tulpas he wanted to strengthen and control.”
“How do we unmake the tulpas?”
“The people whose fears created them and who willed them into being have to un-will them,” Simon replied. “They basically ignore the tulpas out of existence.”
“That…could be difficult. We’re not sure who all of Wyrick’s patients were or if they’re still alive and still in town. I’m hoping that at least a few will show up to talk to us.” Brent sighed. “We’ll come up with something. We always do. Did you see the materials I sent you?”
“Yeah—downloaded them, shared the files with the Alliance, but I’ve only had a chance to skim part of it,” Simon admitted. “Scary as fuck.”
“Unfortunately, everything I’ve read so far from Wyrick’s files is about creating these monsters and making them stronger, but he didn’t seem to think about how to defuse them after the war.”
“His type never do,” Simon said. “That’s why there are thousands of land mines and unexploded bombs in old war zones all over the world.”
Brent’s phone buzzed, reminding him that Wyrick’s former patients should be arriving soon. “Gotta go. Thank you for everything, and if you get a breakthrough—”
“I’ll call. Be careful. Do your best to get out of there in one piece.”
“That’s the plan.” Brent hung up but didn’t add that he had started to wonder if any of them would make it out of South Fork alive. He looked up and caught Travis’s eye. “Any luck?”
Travis made a see-sawing gesture. “I found some connections and asked for help. Problem is, South Fork isn’t the only place in danger of flooding. There’s a storm front hanging over a large stretch of Central PA, and shelters are filling up with local folks who don’t have anywhere to go.”
“Spending a night on a bus in a truck stop parking lot beats drowning.”
“Yes—and if it comes down to that, we’ll deal. But it would be better if we didn’t have to.” Travis drummed his fingers on the table. “I’m hoping some of my other contacts will come through.”
Brent’s watch vibrated again, marking six o’clock. Right on time, the door opened, sending a gust of wind into the room as a dark-haired man in biker leathers entered. A blond man wearing a polo shirt and khaki pants rose from his seat at the bar. Both nodded in greeting as if neither were surprised to see the other.
“You wanted to talk about Dr. Wyrick?” the man who had come from outside asked. “You gonna finally do something about those abominations we helped him create?”
The other man spoke up. “Don’t blame yourself, Vinnie. We didn’t know what he was doing.”
“You don’t feel responsible, Jackson? ’Cause I can’t sleep at night. I hear them howling. And now with people missing, I think maybe I should go looking for them to see if my Casper would go away if I just let it have me,” Vinnie replied.
Travis cleared his throat. “We’re hoping you can help us come up with a way to get rid of the creatures without anyone becoming a sacrifice. Please, have a seat and tell us anything you can about your time with Dr. Wyrick.”
Vinnie and Jackson exchanged a look, an unspoken contest of wills. It was clear to Brent that while they knew each other and might have shared the experience of combat, the men weren’t friends. Brent replaced the salt line at the door, and returned to take his seat.
“I’ll go first,” Vinnie growled. “I came back from the war fucked in the head.” He glared as if daring them to argue.
“I served in Iraq,” Brent said. “I understand.”
Vinnie seemed to take his measure and then nodded. “Then you know. You see things over there. It messes you up. I wasn’t dealing well. Too much booze, too many fights, wife left me, lost my job. Judge sent me to ‘court-mandated therapy,’ and I got Wyrick. Lucky me.”
Despite his gruff manner, Vinnie’s leg jiggled, and he twisted a paper napkin as he spoke. “I didn’t like him, but it was talk to the shrink or do time. Wyrick was creepy. He was one of those guys who pretends to be your best friend, but really he’s looking for dirt he can use on you—know what I mean?”
“I’m not sure I do,” Travis replied.
“Wyrick was all touchy-feely, super-compassionate, but it never seemed real,” Vinnie said. “At least, I didn’t think so. He kept wanting me to picture what I feared the most and pour all my anger and fear into that image. Wyrick said if we transferred our emotions to the thing we imagined, it would lessen the pain. He lied.”
“Did he teach you to make thought forms?” Brent asked. “Basically, an invisible friend?”
Vinnie laughed, a harsh, bitter sound. “Yeah. Caspers. I told him it was fuckin’ insulting, but he wasn’t shy about holding jail over my head. I tried. I mean, I’ve got a lot of anger to spare. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that it worked. Except what I created was spooky as shit.”
“You saw something?” Brent gripped his coffee cup and leaned forward.
Vinnie grimaced. “I’m still not sure exactly what I saw, but I can tell you what I think I saw. I had a lot of anger going into the Army and even more coming out. I thought it was going to tear me apart from the inside or get me killed in a bar brawl. Wyrick told me to picture how I felt—so I thought of the old movies I used to watch, and I pictured the Wolfman.”
“What happened?” Travis glanced at Brent, who knew his partner was thinking about the creature that had jumped on their car.
“For a while, nothing. Every session, doc made me picture the wolfman—how he sounded, what his fur felt like, how he smelled. It got easier to do, putting an image together in my mind,” Vinnie went on. “Then our appointments changed, and Doc wanted me to meditate and imagine having a conversation with the wolf and feeding it my anger like meat.”
Vinnie shrugged. “I thought it was a bunch of bullshit. Went along with it to stay out of jail. But then…” He turned and stared toward the rain-lashed window, and Brent thought he glimpsed fear behind the tough exterior.
“…weird things started to happen. I’d catch a glimpse of the wolfman during the day when I wasn’t even thinking about therapy. At night, I heard something scratching outside my house, and there were claw marks on the wood by the bedroom window,” Vinnie continued. “I’d hear howling, and if I looked out my window, I’d see a dark shape, like the wolf. After that happened a few times, I just put my pillow over my head and stayed in bed.”
“Did the wolfman ever attack you?” Brent asked.
Vinnie stared at him for a moment as if trying to figure out whether he was being mocked. Finally, he shook his head.
“No. But even though I was going to my sessions, I still had a lot of rage inside. One night I got in a bar fight, and we both knocked each other around pretty hard. Blowing off steam, not trying to kill anyone. That’s when I saw the wolf in the shadows. He had red eyes, and I could see his teeth. And I just knew in my bones that if I called him, he’d tear the other guy apart,” Vinnie replied.
“What happened?” Brent felt a chill at Vinnie’s story.
“I told the guy it was over and to go back inside. And I thought real hard at the wolf to go away. He did—that night.”
“And since then?” Travis prodded.
“Not too long afterward, Wyrick ‘fell’ out of his window.” Vinnie’s tone made it clear he didn’t believe the official story. “They ended the program, and I got my walking papers. I stopped concentrating on the wolf, and whenever I thought of him or got a glimpse of something in the shadows, I told him to go away. But he doesn’t listen to me anymore.”
“Did Wyrick give you any special medicines or have any unusual rituals you were supposed to do to create the shadow creature?” Travis had a look in his eye that usually meant he’d found a clue.
“No. They drug tested us all the time, so I’d have known. Rituals? You mean like witchy stuff? Nah. Although the doc always said the same thing when we started picturing the wolf—said it was supposed to open my mind to free my rage,” Vinnie told them.
“Do you remember what he said?” Brent tried not to sound too excited.
Vinnie shifted in his chair. “I’d, um, rather not say it out loud. I can write it down for you.” He glanced back at the window. “He’s out there—my wolfman. I don’t want him to get any closer.”
“Did you ever see any other creatures aside from the one you imagined?” Travis asked. Jackson shook his head, but Vinnie caught his breath and looked away.
“Vinnie?” Travis asked gently.
“The old man,” Vinnie said quietly. “I’ve never told anyone—not even Wyrick. But all my life, just before something bad happened, I’d see this old man in a fur coat in my dreams. I don’t think he’s anyone I’ve ever met. Always scared the shit out of me. Even as a kid, I knew he was bad. I saw him on and off during the war, right before a clusterfuck. Lately, it’s been more often. Sleeping pills don’t work, but if I get drunk enough, I can sometimes get a few hours rest before he shows up again.”
Brent took a good look at Vinnie and could see the toll his “bad dreams” had taken.
Brent pulled a piece of paper from a tablet in his bag and slid it and a pen over to Vinnie. “Thank you for talking with us.” He suspected that it had been hard for Vinnie to share his concerns.
“What are you going to do about it?” Vinnie demanded after he scribbled the remembered words and passed the paper and pen back to Brent. “Those things all of us made are still around, and they’ve gotten worse. They used to chase people or scare them, not kill. Don’t know what changed things. Now, ain’t none of us going to be safe until they’re gone.”
“He’s right,” Jackson spoke up. “That’s what happened to me with Wyrick, except they held my job over my head, not jail. I made a cat creature, not a wolfman, but the rest is the same.” He paused. “I remember the ‘relaxation words’ too—if you want me to write them down for you.”
Brent thought about Vinnie’s “wolfman” and Jackson’s mention of a were-cat. So that’s what we saw. Tulpas they created and Wyrick strengthened into something that’s still around.
Brent gave him paper and pen, and Jackson wrote quickly. Clearly the “meditation” introduction had stuck in his memory. While they waited, Chris brought coffee for them and Brent thanked him with a nod.
“And you think your…creature…is still out there too?” Travis asked Jackson.
He nodded. “I know he is. I see him—more often these last few weeks than before. And when I think at him to go away, he just stares at me, like he’s gloating. I can’t control him anymore—if I ever really could,” Jackson admitted.
Brent turned back to Vinnie. “You don’t seem to buy the story that Dr. Wyrick’s death was an accident. Why?”
Vinnie and Jackson shared another glance, an unspoken conversation between men who might not be friends but had been through hell together.
“Nobody liked Dr. Wyrick. He was an arrogant son of a bitch, and he lorded his power over people. For us, it was that he could throw us back in jail or get us in trouble if we didn’t do what he said. But he bullied the hospital people too, about how he’d bring the feds down on them if he didn’t get his way.” Vinnie shrugged.
“He was too full of himself to jump,” Jackson put in. “His kind always think they’ve got it all figured out. Lots of people didn’t like him, but I always wondered if the feds didn’t give him a shove.”
Travis raised an eyebrow. “Interesting theory. Why?”
Jackson hesitated for a moment as if worried that he’d said too much before barreling on. “They’d show up every couple of weeks, and it didn’t seem like he got along with them. Once, I heard them shouting when I came early for my appointment. I didn’t hear what they said, but no one was happy.”
“I heard him say something on the phone about ‘taking what he’d developed and going solo,’” Vinnie chimed in. “He ended the call as soon as he realized I was there and looked like he’d sucked on a dill pickle when he figured out that I’d heard him talking. He didn’t say anything, and neither did I. But maybe the feds didn’t want him to leave.”
That summed up Brent’s suspicions, and he felt certain Travis shared those same thoughts.
“Thank you for talking with us,” Brent said. “I know the military doesn’t make it easy to talk about this stuff.”
Vinnie shook his head, looking a bit lost. “When I started my sessions with Wyrick, a little part of me hoped he could help me get rid of the anger so I wouldn’t become a monster. And because of him, I’ve created an even worse thing and put it out into the world.”
To Brent’s surprise, Jackson reached out and laid a hand on Vinnie’s arm. “We got screwed—by the V.A. and by Wyrick. That’s not on you or me. Out of everything we’ve done, this isn’t something we did wrong.”
Vinnie managed a tight smile and a brusque nod of his head. His gaze snapped up to bore into Brent. “If there’s a way to kill these shadows, you tell us, hear me? I need a chance to put this right.”
“If there’s a way you can help, I’ll make sure you know,” Brent promised.
Vinnie and Jackson rose, and Brent and Travis also stood. Just as Vinnie took a step toward the door, a loud boom shook the tavern, rattling the bottles on the backbar and the glass in the windows.
“Holy shit!” One of the customers seated near the front window stared and pointed.
An orange fireball rose into the sky. Everyone rushed to see. Chris paled, reaching beneath the bar for a police scanner and placing it on the counter. He turned up the volume.
“…all units to the East Conemaugh Bridge, South Fork side. Do not attempt to cross. Truck explosion in the center of the span, structure is compromised.” Calabrese’s voice sounded worried and dead tired.
“Fuck,” Chris muttered, scrabbling for his phone. He hit speed dial, and Brent heard it ring until Liz’s voicemail picked up.
“What’s going on?” Brent sidled up to the bar even as the others remained glued to the window, watching the distant flames.
“Liz got a bus and a driver lined up—they were going to take the first bunch of…refugees…to Johnstown,” Chris said. “She found a church that will put them up for at least a couple of nights. They were just leaving—”
Brent saw the fear in his old friend’s eyes. “That doesn’t mean the bus was on the bridge when it blew.”
“Can’t prove she wasn’t,” Chris said in a voice like he’d gargled glass.
“Save the grieving until you know for sure,” Brent said, dropping his voice to a near whisper.
Chris’s phone rang, and he grabbed for it like a drowning man. “Liz? My God, are you okay? Where are you?”
Liz spoke too fast for Brent to pick up on the conversation, except for what mattered—she was alive.
“Okay, okay. Just—be safe. Text me and let me know how things are going. If you need provisions, I’m running thin, but I’ll give you whatever I can.” He listened for a moment and nodded. “Yeah. Love you too.”
Chris ended the call and stared at the phone for a moment. “She’s alive,” he said, and Brent wondered if it was more to reassure himself than to inform them. “They loaded the bus and were heading out, but everything took longer, and so they were behind schedule. She said a big truck passed them, and then they were about a block away when the explosion happened. She thinks it was that truck.”
“They’re safe. Liz is okay. Breathe,” Brent coaxed.
Chris nodded. “I know. It’s just going to take a bit to sink in.”
The police radio squawked again as the bar’s customers slowly returned to their seats.
“Mike, report,” Calabrese ordered on the police channel.
“Negative on the West River Bridge,” Sokolowki replied, sounding disgusted. “The water is high and rough. It’s compromised at least one of the supports. I’ll be surprised if it’s still standing by tomorrow night.”
“How are the northern roads?” Calabrese asked.
“They’re a clusterfuck,” Mike replied, sounding too frustrated to worry about protocol. “A sinkhole took out both lanes on River Road in the valley, and mud and rockslides completely blocked Hillside at the cut. No one’s getting out that way.”
“Talk to us,” Travis said. “What does that mean?”
Chris poured himself a shot of Jack and knocked it back. “There are four ways in or out of South Fork—the bridges and two main roads. The bridges are out. And apparently, so are both of the roads.”
Just like what Darius warned us about at the diner. Darkness and hell on the other side of the bridge into South Fork.
“Can’t people just go around the blockage?” Brent asked, trying to recall the map he’d studied on their way to town.
Chris shook his head. “Not with where the problems are. There’s a natural bottleneck on each road—a valley and a cut through the mountain. No matter how you get to the roads, you’ve got to pass through those bottlenecks to make it to the other side—short of hiking over Lee Mountain.”
