Periphery, page 29
“Long as we have to,” Sam said. Little Billy wished the firefighter could have been a little more convincing, but under the circumstances, his quiet attempt at defiance was the most valiant display of resolve Little Billy had seen all night. He pressed the talk button.
“These guys aren’t going to quit until they’re twitching and drooling on the ground, and I don’t see that happening anytime soon. Katie, I know you’re scared.” Across the street, the corner of a two-story Mediterranean was swelling like blown glass as a bubble drifted through it. Little Billy hoped the occupants had already fled.
“We’re all scared. But nobody’s panicking.” Not wanting to end the conversation on a tired and insincere note about staying positive, he tried something he hadn’t attempted since college, a tactic that had always made Laura smile on the rare occasions when the stress of finals threatened to overwhelm her. He went for the absurd.
Pitching his tone into a syrupy exaggeration of polished salesmanship, he slipped into what he had once thought of as his game show host voice. “So pack away those blues, grab yourself a big bowl of can-do and turn that frown upside down.”
Little Billy made a face and held the walkie-talkie out as if it might explode.
“Where. Are. You.” Katie said in a voice lacking all inflection. Little Billy gave her their location.
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Over and OUT.”
“Oh, you in trouble now,” Terrance assured him as he passed the radio back. “If I were you, I’d start running.”
“And miss all the fun?”
Terrance grew somber. “Seriously, man, it’s like you told your girlfriend: Your job here is done. Be honest, you think we’ll be able to blast these things out of the ground?”
“We have to try.”
“No, we have to try.” Terrance swept his finger around in a circle, indicating the firefighters while excluding Little Billy. “And that’s not an answer.”
“It’s as much as I can give.”
“That’s what I thought. You want to stay, stay. Nobody’s going to chase you off. But what about her? You want her here when the sun comes up?”
Little Billy slowly shook his head, unsure what he was negating. All he knew was that the last twenty years of his life had led up to this event and he would not turn from whatever fate awaited him. If Katie insisted on staying—and he knew she would—he wouldn’t try to send her away. God help him, if he was to die in the morning, he wanted her face to be the last thing he saw.
“She can decide that for herself.”
Terrance shook his head. “I hope she has a hell of a lot more sense than you do.”
On that, they could agree.
Twenty-one
It was all a dream. As they stood waiting for the metal door at the base of the water tower to open, a voice in Andrew’s head kept chanting the mantra over and over again. This is a dream. It’s a dream. This is all a dream. Trouble was, he didn’t believe a word of it. This was as real as things got, and the frantic repetition of his thoughts was nothing more than a sort of mental shivering, an uncontrollable reflex that warmed his faculties just enough to keep from slipping into a hypothermic daze of terror.
As he had driven Sid’s car north up the interstate, the steady traffic of emergency vehicles heading in the opposite direction had given Andrew the sensation of fleeing disaster rather than racing toward it. If there was a moment of surrealism and dislocation, it was then, weaving around slower vehicles in a car that wasn’t his. He had recognized the voice on the other end of the call, the voice that had instructed him where to go, but it was a puzzle piece he couldn’t fit into any conceivable configuration of reality.
Gary Wyatt holding his family hostage, pointing a gun at Grace, demanding he rendezvous with them at the Sulfur Springs water tower, threatening to kill her and then Anna if he didn’t. Gary Wyatt? His partner of eight weeks? What was he missing here? This couldn’t be right. Some vital piece of information had been omitted, some detail that would realign the situation, affording him a perspective in which everything shifted back into some semblance of normalcy.
Maybe he’d been wrong about the male voice. Maybe it hadn’t been Gary’s. But the other voice, the one that concluded the conversation? It had been Grace’s, no doubt.
“Do what he says,” she pleaded, her voice quivering in fear. “This is for real.”
He understood how real as he pulled up to the tower. There they were, bathed in the stage glow of the upward-angled floodlights ringing the base of the tower. Grace was still wearing the same clothes he had seen her in earlier, her bandaged arms wrapped protectively around Anna. And yes, Gary was with them, the same man who only a few days ago had scrubbed an insult from his locker door. He was standing arm-in-arm with Grace as if they were about to walk up the aisle together.
Then he saw the gun pointed at her right breast and reality crashed over him with a leaden oppression that reminded Andrew of the extra gravity he’d experienced on the vetro offalate’s world.
That was when his mantra began. Not real. Not real. At least it competed with the other voices in his head. Their voices. But not by much.
Almost immediately Andrew had sensed something like embarrassment from his former partner. The tilt of his head, the apologetic way he told him “that’s close enough,” as he approached with his hands in the air, Gary’s refusal to make eye contact, it all suggested a man reluctantly performing a disagreeable task he could no longer avoid. The first thing Gary had done was volunteer the reasons for his actions in a rushed explanation flung out between them like a shield, and when Andrew was certain he had heard the man correctly he nearly laughed in despair.
“They’re not going to keep their promise,” he said now as they waited outside the tower’s door. He wanted to direct Gary’s attention away from Anna, who was obviously starting to annoy him. His daughter had been singing throughout the standoff, a simple, repetitive melody intoned with the same fervor as the prayer of a pilot trying to land his sputtering Cessna on a stretch of busy highway. It was heartbreaking, his little angel trying to comfort herself during the ordeal. The only thing that had kept Andrew from lunging at Gary with a howl of anguish was the fear the gun would go off and hit either his wife or daughter.
Gary’s head wobbled. “So you say. But I’ve seen what they can do.”
“Me, too,” Andrew suddenly remembered the man he and Gary had transported earlier in the week, the one blaring hip-hop music into the neighborhood and screaming about the voices in his head.
“No, you haven’t. They’re gods, Andy. Returning gods. This was their world long before it was ours. They can heal us, if we just let them. That’s all they really want: to make us better. Make us whole.”
“And kill anyone who stands in their way.”
Gary’s mouth tightened. “The only reason you’re still alive is because of me. Me, Andy. I could have shot you coming out of that fleabag motel you’ve been holed up in at any time. That’s what they wanted. But I said no. I said getting you thrown in jail would be enough and they agreed. Now here I am again, trying to keep people from dying. So, if you don’t mind… Hey, little girl! How about giving the Row, Row, Row Your Boat a rest, okay? You’ve been looping it for an hour now.”
Andrew took a step forward, he couldn’t help it, and Gary shifted the muzzle of the gun until it was only inches from Grace’s chest.
“Stay.” He drew the word out, turning it into a canine command.
“Honey,” Grace said in a watery voice. “Can you sing in your head for a little?”
Before his daughter could answer, the tower door began to swing inward with the squeal of metal and scrape of concrete. Gary yanked Grace in front of him and bent his knees so that only the top of his head was exposed to whoever was about to emerge. At the same time, Andrew was vaguely aware of motion behind them, a wash of headlights as another vehicle turned into the park entrance. Not real, not real, not real, the voice in his head insisted, faster now, ever faster as the call of the vetro grew more insistent.
“Show your hands,” Gary demanded. “Just your hands. Nothing else.”
A pair of hands reached from the opening. They were not his father’s. Even from the shadows, it was obvious the individual on the other side was black.
“You’re not John Tate.”
“Name’s Booker Lamont. John Tate’s hurt. He’s in too much pain to make it back down here anytime soon.”
“Bullshit. Come all the way out of there. Slowly.” Booker edged out with his hands over his head. Andrew had not recognized the name, but he knew the face. Mr. Lamont was the guard who had cleaned him up before his release from jail.
“Take off the jacket and do a three-sixty.”
Booker did as he was told, turning slowly. If he was armed, the weapon was well concealed.
“I have what you want. Tate sent it down with me. It’s in a bag just inside the door. Do I have your permission to fetch it?”
“Send the old man down. We’ll wait.”
“I told you, he’s in bad shape. Someone tried to kill him yesterday and he should be in the hospital. Same guy who did that to Andy.” He motioned with his head, but Gary didn’t bother turning. “It’ll take half-an-hour or more to lower him down and he’ll probably pass out before he gets to the bottom. It’s the device you want anyway. Take it and leave these poor people be.”
Gary all but vanished behind Grace. Only his arms and eyes were visible as he peered over her shoulder. Christ, Andrew thought, haven’t we done this hostage thing before?
“If you’re planning to reach for a weapon this is going to end badly for everyone,” Gary said.
“No, sir. No way I’d risk the safety of the woman and little girl. Or myself, for that matter.”
Gary appeared to listen for a moment, his head cocked.
“Do it slowly,” he said after a pause.
Booker back-stepped through the opening, leaned to his right while keeping his left hand raised, and groped for a moment. When he straightened he held a duffel bag clenched in his fist.
“Bring it out.”
Booker walked forward until ordered to stop halfway between the tower and the hostage taker.
“Open it,” Gary—or rather the vetro—ordered.
Booker set the bag on the ground and unzipped it.
“Pull it open so I can see inside.”
Booker yanked the sides apart.
“Now back off. Back to the door.”
Although it was too dark to make out details, the thing in the bag appeared to be two shoebox-sized objects wrapped in gauze and secured by rope. Something drew Andrew’s attention up the wall of the tower, the suggestion of motion. A bat maybe? His eyes settled on a black rectangle of window. No, he thought even before realizing what he was opposing. Too dangerous. Don’t even think about it. His cognition caught up with his instinct and a vision of the sniper’s errant bullet punching out one of Grace’s eyes began repeating as unrelentingly as Anna’s song which, despite Gary’s order, hadn’t skipped a beat.
A new mantra replaced the previous one: Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot. Christ, don’t shoot.
“We did what you asked,” Booker said. “You have what you came for. Now let the hostages go.”
“Not until I see what’s in the bag.”
“So, look. It’s right in front of you.”
Andrew couldn’t take his eyes off the window. Slowly, like a viper rising from its hiding place, the long barrel of a rifle emerged from the blackness. If Gary happened to look up and to the left, he would see. Don’t look. Don’t shoot. Don’t move. Don’t breathe.
“Little girl,” Gary said. “Do something useful. Grab the bag and bring it over here.”
Anna lifted desperate eyes to her mother.
“Do it.” Gary’s voice was boulders rolling down a volcanic slope. “Mom, tell your daughter to get the bag.”
First Grace, then Anna turned to Andrew. In their expressions was something he could not bear, the expectation that he knew what to do to keep them safe. His head moved, up, down, but all he could think was no, no, no.
“Go ahead, honey,” Grace instructed. Anna reached for her mother’s hand and their fingers intertwined. After taking a moment to muster her courage, she began slowly edging away. In five steps, she was at the bag. When she bent to pick it up the nearest floodlight exploded. It went out with a percussive whoosh. The resulting column of darkness was a charcoal streak up the side of the tower.
Andrew clutched his head and hunched his shoulders, rooted in place with dread, but when a second floodlight winked out his paralysis broke. Booker darted forward, scooped Anna into his arms and spun back toward the tower as Andrew plowed into Gary’s right shoulder, sending him pirouetting backward. Hostage and hostage-taker parted. Andrew grabbed Gary’s forearm and yanked it up, intending at the very least to keep the weapon pointed away from his wife. They pivoted around one another, but instead of going down in a tangle of legs and compromised balance, Gary added his own weight into the spin and thrust out his hip. Andrew was sling-shotted around and flung to the ground.
“Bn’nalagor cantala!” Die now!
Gary centered the gun on Andrew’s forehead, but before he could pull the trigger Grace landed on his shoulders as if she’d dropped from an overhead branch. Her teeth found his neck, her nails his face. He staggered forward, sinking to his knees. Andrew sprang up and pulled Grace off. “Get inside!”
“Not without you.”
“Go! I’ll hold him off.”
“Together!”
He was about to push her toward the door when a voice, a human voice, hollered from above, “Give me a clear shot, damn it!”
Good enough. Andrew wrapped his arms around his wife and together they ran toward the entrance where Booker stood frantically waving them on. The sniper fired another round as Grace reached the door. Booker pulled her inside. An instant later something blindsided Andrew hard enough to send him hurtling through the air. He landed in a sprawl, gasping for breath and scissoring his legs like a toppled windup toy.
“Miss me, darlin’?”
The feet in front of him were large and bare and protruded from what appeared to be a hospital gown. The gown was drenched in something dark. Andrew took a sip of air.
“We have unfinished business. Didn’t think throwing me over a railing was going to keep me down, did you?”
Andrew rolled onto his back. Theodore Hillsdale. He was horrible with names, but his scrambled brain produced the words like slices of charred bread popping up from a smoking toaster. Ping. Theodore Hillsdale, the convict who had attacked him and his father. He took another sip of air.
“The big guys have plans for me. Nothing’s gonna stop that. Not these handcuffs,” he held up his left arm, displaying a shackle around his wrist dangling a segment of broken chain. “Not the guard keeping me company at the hospital. He gushed like a fountain when I chewed through his jugular.”
Hillsdale reached down and stroked his erection through the gore-splattered gown. “Too bad I had an appointment to keep. Could have had some fun.”
A smile, one-third beatific and two-thirds lunacy, split his face like an incision. “But now I got you, precious. And I have this.” Hillsdale raised his other hand. “I won’t shoot you. At least not yet. First, I’m going to see how far up your ass I can shove the barrel. I figure…”
The vetro offalate’s warning was loud enough to curl Andrew to a ball. Less than a dozen feet away, Booker sank to the ground with one hand pressed against his temple, the other trembling to keep its tenuous grip on the handgun he’d been aiming at Hillsdale’s back.
“Just the big guys clearing their throats!” Hillsdale said with manic good cheer. “Did they…”
Andrew kicked out and heard the kneecap shatter.
“Motherfucker!”
Andrew stood, barely avoiding his attacker’s lunge, and pulled Booker to his feet. A bullet knocked a chunk of concrete from the tower wall in front of them, its trajectory passing so close to Andrew’s ear he felt the rush of hot air. Was that from Gary’s gun or Hillsdale’s?
They ran.
Answering gunshots erupted in rapid succession, the sniper’s window flashing with each round. At the door, Booker jerked suddenly and stumbled through.
The bag! It was still back there. Andrew turned in time to see Gary snatch it up, and as their eyes met two hands slammed down on Andrew’s shoulders. He was jerked inside. A figure circled in front of him and shouldered the door closed. The last thing he saw was Gary’s puzzled face peering into the bag before a final howl—either of triumph or frustration—exploded inside his skull, sending a cascade of sparks spiraling down to a pool of dark water smelling strongly of earth and rot.
Little Billy peered through the thinning smoke and thought, better. The blast had thrown debris a hundred yards in every direction, splintered pieces of cheap furniture, ancient toys and the twisted remains of obsolete electronics splashing into swimming pools and punching holes through the screened porches of nearby houses. A soiled mattress was balanced in the upper reaches of one of the trees screening the far side of the culvert. More satisfyingly, the detonation had scooped out a crater twenty yards across and just as deep. And yet. And yet! There, materializing in the center of the depression was the xalanthracoil that had looked like a pot-bellied stove to Andrew.
Little Billy removed his earplugs. Next to him, Katie did the same.
“You have to admit, that was impressive.”
Katie said nothing. The dark circles under her eyes gave her expression a feral quality, feverish, nearly rabid. She leaned her head against his arm and closed her eyes and he wouldn’t have been surprised if, a moment later, she had begun sliding to the ground in exhaustion. The voices were wearing them down, relentlessly sandblasting away their sanity. A claustrophobic panic was closing an invisible fist around his throat. Each breath took more effort than the last and they still had one target to go, the xalantracoil in the cemetery. It was all or nothing now.
