Something Bad (21 page)

The first thing to come into focus was the carpet. It registered in all senses. He smelled it, tasted it, felt it pressed against the entire side of his head. He pushed his torso up with his hands. How long was he out? Long enough to break out in a sweat. Long enough to soak through the back of his shirt.

Tightness gripped his chest, and his lungs refused to inflate. He had to get out. Another quick memory. The latch on the front doors was hard to throw in a hurry. He ignored the pain in his leg and scrambled for the back door.

“Shit,” he said a little too loud. The back door didn’t budge. In his confusion he didn’t think to unlock it. Instead, he lifted the knob and gave a firm yank. It came open with a familiar pop.

His breath came easier in the open air. Grasping his upper thighs with his hands, he hunched over until his breathing rate dropped.

A flash of light cut through the clear night air, to his left. He turned his head. Another flash. It was coming from inside the rectory, from the front room. The flashes reminded Gabe of camera flashes. Was someone taking pictures in the rectory?

Part of him wanted to run to his truck, but part wanted to see what Thibideaux was up to. He had the opportunity. Perhaps the sight of the little man would trigger another memory replay. Another flash and he moved, before he made a mental decision to do so. He hurried past the front of the building and rounded the corner.

The windows on the west side of the rectory were high so he walked bent at the waist. The second window up would give a good view of almost the entire room.

He gripped the window ledge with his fingertips and rose on tiptoes. He strained his neck enough to see inside. Thibideaux sat in a huge chair. It was so large he looked like a toddler sitting in a big people’s chair. His legs didn’t reach the floor. Gabe dropped back onto flat feet.

He re-gripped the window ledge and went back on toe in time to see Thibideaux flick his right arm out to his side with his index and middle fingers pointing at the wall to the right of the fireplace. An electrical arc shot from his two fingers across the room and crashed into the wall with a muffled crackle. The bright flash extinguished to the background flicker of the fireplace.

Gabe lost his grip and slipped below the view line. His heart trotted out a regular rhythm.

He pulled himself up again and watched Thibideaux’s left hand flick out like the right had just done. Another electrical arc shot across the room into the wall no more than five feet from Gabe’s window. He released his grip and shrunk into the shadow of the window ledge.

His fingers and toes cramped so he looked for another way to get a vantage point. Just down the wall, to the back of the building, sat a galvanized steel garbage can. He lifted the can and hobbled back to the window. From the weight of the can, it was empty or nearly so. He climbed on top, taking care to place his weight near the edges of the lid. When he gained his balance, Thibideaux was in clear view.

Gabe watched Thibideaux flick out two more mini-lightning bolts, thirty seconds apart, then stiffen in his chair. The little man brought both arms to the front, pointing directly at the fireplace and made tiny fists.

Gabe adjusted his weight on the can and leaned forward a little.

Thibideaux slapped his fists together and then opened them. A loud “Ha” escaped his nearly closed lips and a large fireball shot from his hands into the fireplace, launching a shower of sparks that flew halfway across the room.

At impact, Gabe recoiled, and his shifting weight inverted the lid of the garbage can with a loud, metallic pop. He struggled to maintain his balance.

A whirring sound came from inside the rectory. Gabe glanced in as the chair swung in his direction.

He scrambled from the can and it toppled, creating a metal-on-gravel clamor that startled a distant dog to bark. He made a quick dive for an adjacent shrub and tried to cover his body with the foliage. His breathing came loud. Slowing the inhalations only made him feel more out-of-breath. A sweet smell, of Persian lilac, seemed to suck some of the precious oxygen from his hiding place.

The muted light of the evening dimmed even more, and Gabe turned his head up to see a bank of fog circling the corner of the rectory, coming in his direction. He lowered his head into his hands as the chill of the mist penetrated the bush. It felt like he was being probed by dozens of cold, damp hands, like a blind person would feel someone’s face to discover the identity. Shivers added to Gabe’s breathing problems.

As quickly as the fog appeared, it receded around the corner of the rectory, pulling even more air from Gabe’s lungs. He gasped for his next breath.

Run for it, he thought, but his body wasn’t ready. He’d have to control his breathing first. Before he could move, the foundation of the rectory groaned, sounding like the complaint of wood joints put under a shear. The ground beneath Gabe seemed to go fluid.

It slumped downward, like the retraction of water prior to the invasion of a large bow wave of an ocean liner. Then the ground heaved upward. He was launched from his hiding place and landed with a thud four feet back from the shrub. Pain shot through his bad knee and extended up into his hip.

Before he could pull himself up on one elbow, another temblor threw him another three feet, this time to his right. The landing shook his bones and pain invaded his left leg—the good one.

One more jolt rolled Gabe onto his back. He stayed there, motionless, waiting for what Thibideaux had for the next round.

The window over the garbage can flew open and banged to a stop hard enough to crack the lower pane. Gabe tried to push his body down into the dirt, to flatten out as much as possible. He heard a “Ha” sound and a large fireball flew through the window in his direction. He closed his eyes as a searing pulse of heat screamed close to his head. It felt like the flash of a grill when a match is thrown onto starter-soaked briquettes.

He turned his head away from the rectory and followed the path of the fireball, which continued on a dead line to Billy Smyth’s trailer. Upon impact, the living room of the trailer burst into flames.

Gabe jumped to his feet and ran in the direction of the trailer before the pain in his legs registered. He stumbled, but managed to shuffle the two hundred yards to the burning structure. The door was halfway along the side and the flames hadn’t spread that far, so he grabbed the edge of the door with his fingertips, near the bottom, and managed to pop the latch. He crawled low to the back of the trailer, staying below the billowing clouds of smoke.

Billy was in his bedroom in the back of the trailer. The jolt had roused him from a deep sleep but in his confusion he became tangled in his sheets. Gabe freed him and pulled him along the floor to the open door as flames licked walls above them.

He jerked Billy away from the trailer and collapsed in the dirt, cradling Billy across his lap. Molten metal dripped from the wall surrounding the door they just exited.

Gabe strained to breathe, but despite the disaster, he felt a strange sense of relief. Thibideaux had spared him when he could have killed him outright. But why? Gabe thought of John Johnson’s highway theory. His own farm was in the best route. But still Thibideaux spared him.

A memory flashed. Thibideaux had spared Father Costello, too. Why? The fire could have, should have, killed Billy, so Billy was expendable. Gabe shook his head. What was so special about him and Father Costello that they both were spared? Maybe Father Costello knew—if he were still alive.

Billy’s moans brought Gabe back. He looked down. They were both alive—one by design, one by circumstance.

The engine of the volunteer fire department rounded the corner of Main Street as the flames consumed the far end of Billy’s trailer. They might as well go home, Gabe thought. The trailer was a goner. Fortunately, Billy’s repair shop was far enough away to be out of danger.

Billy grabbed Gabe’s shirt. “What am I going to do now?”

“Don’t worry about it, Billy. We’ve got a bed for you.”

Billy looked over Gabe’s shoulder. A contrail of dispersing smoke traced the path of the fireball back to the rectory. He looked up at Gabe, rolled off of his lap onto the ground, and jumped to his feet. “Fuck this,” he said and made a beeline for his truck. Billy’s truck turned east on Main Street and disappeared into the night.

Gabe slumped in the dust, the flames of Billy’s former home flickering in parallel with Gabe’s mind. He knew what he had to do. He had to find Father Costello.

T
HIBIDEAUX SAT BACK
in his chair but he didn’t close his eyes. He was having the first troubled evening of his stay in Boyston. He had to figure out what to do with Gabe Petersen.

“What is it about his place?” he said out loud. He patted the arm of the chair. “Just like last time, I really want to kill a citizen.”

He leaned forward in the chair, balled both fists, and punched his thighs. “Not this time. I won’t repeat past mistakes. When he’s of no more use, I’m going to kill him.”

He fell back and took a deep breath. Do as you are trained to do, he thought. Recite the litany. He had the entire text committed to memory. He had to. It was here, twenty-five years ago that his notebook had found its way into the wrong hands. He had to incinerate it on the spot. He was still bitter about the loss, but the sacrifice was in the best interests of the Organization. After all, the notebook was mostly a comforting keepsake. “What is it about this place?”

He slid from the chair and paced in front of the fireplace, but he had trouble keeping his mind on the principles of the Organization. He skipped to the statistics in Section One. Repetition was the key to remembering, so he closed his eyes and pushed the “play” button on his mind’s recorder.

“Triple O x Citizen, Training Success Rate = 17.6%. Citizen x Citizen, Training Success Rate = 0.78%. Citizen x Citizen, Absentee, Training Success Rate = 2.6%. Citizen x Citizen, Special Circumstance, Training Success Rate = 6.4%.”

Instead of continuing his recitation, he let his mind wander to a familiar time and place. It was when he discovered the magnitude of his special powers. All recruiters had powers. Like the ability to project themselves away from their bodies to observe others, shrouded in a fog, rainstorm, or other meteorological phenomenon. They all could enhance the probability of events, provided the events were initiated without their intervention.

Thibideaux tried to smile. He thought about the physical desires of Gabe and Wanna. It was a good catch—there was an attraction there, but way under the surface.

He reflected on the doctrine again. Recruiters cannot influence citizens to do what they wouldn’t ordinarily do, but they can capitalize on inherent weaknesses of individuals to achieve their goals.

“Can’t hold a candle to me,” he said.

He touched the scars on his cheeks and tried, again, to turn his mouth into a grin, but the paralyzed muscles only allowed a slight gape of his lips. Children can be cruel, he thought. No one knows that better than me.

He jumped up into the chair and settled against its back. It had been his finest hour so he liked to bring the memory back. He was in the barn at the rear of the training compound, a child of six, surrounded by his fellow trainees, mostly older. They teased him about his face, but zeroed in on his inability to smile. I know how to make him smile, one boy had said. He lowered two hooks that were strung over pulleys by stout chains—the pulleys attached to the roof over the hayloft. He slid the hooks into the corners of young Thibideaux’s mouth. With the other boys chanting, “Smile … Smile … Smile,” a boy grabbed each chain and began pulling. Thibideaux remembered being lifted off the ground until the skin at the corners of his mouth gave way, releasing him from the hooks.

He touched the scars again, then leaned forward and thrust his fists into the air. That’s when the Organization saw the full extent of my powers, he thought. Too bad the boys didn’t know what hit them. That’s also when the Organization decided to waive the physical stature requirements in my case. He sighed. Probably why I only get assignments in the country.

The victorious memory relaxed him, as it always did, and with relaxation came clarity of thought. The time for achieving his primary objective was coming fast. Since Gabe would be needed in case the secondary objective panned out, he decided to leave Gabe alone. For now. Gabe’s knowledge of the Organization was nonexistent. In order to abide by the edict of drawing minimal attention to himself or the Organization’s activities, Thibideaux decided to stand pat.

G
ABE STIRRED
. H
IS
bed shook.

“Gabe, I need a little more help around here.”

It was Wanna’s voice. He rubbed his eyes and looked for the clock. “What time is it?”

“Time for you to get up and give me some help.”

He leaned up on one elbow and waited for the cobwebs to clear from his mind. “It’s not even dawn yet. What’s so important that I have to get up a whole hour early?”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“I know the problem. You got breakfast cooking? I’m really hungry.”

Wanna put her left hand to her mouth and her right to her stomach. She turned and ran for the bathroom. Gabe heard her retch, cough, then flush the toilet. A grin creased his cheeks. “I could use a fried pork sandwich. How about you?”

“You son of a …” The next word started with a “b” and ended with an explosive regurgitation.

Gabe felt bad until he looked at the clock again. He had noticed the change in Wanna a week after their tryst in the barn. Now, his sympathy was worn as thin as a gossamer thread. Besides, he didn’t have time for it all—the morning sickness, the tender breasts, the unreasonable demands, and the hair-trigger mood swings. He knew her too well. And he had something else on his mind—something much more important.