The Hysteria: Book 4, The Eddie McCloskey Paranormal Mystery Series (The Unearthed) (26 page)

“Now you understand,” Megan said.

Together we climbed up the barricade and looked out into the darkness. The rain had finally stopped. The parking lot was awash with blood and bodies. There were still more out there but they weren’t coming.

“I wanted to kill them,” I said.

“But you didn’t want to.”

“Yeah.”

Megan turned back to the rink. We had tied up Riehl and Manetti. Riehl was still out of it and Manetti squirmed against her ropes. Mia stood guard over them with a baseball bat.

“I think it’ll be over soon,” Megan said.

“How do you know?”

She tapped her chest. “I can feel it slipping away. Can’t you?”

All I felt was raw. I couldn’t process much of anything.

“All these people,” I said.

Hundreds, maybe a thousand, dead.

I felt arms around my neck and next thing I knew Megan was hugging me. She sobbed into my shoulder and I hugged her back and let her cry. If I’d been able to feel anything I would have cried too because the death all around us was utterly meaningless.

There was a loud clang and I realized Mia had dropped her baseball bat. She fell to her knees and her shoulders slumped.

“Oh god…oh god…”

She kept saying that, like all the terrible things she’d been forced to do that night were finally hitting her.

Megan unburied her face and wiped under her eyes. “My sister is dead.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I shot her.”

“I’m sorry.”

She stared right through me, then her knees went weak also and I had to catch her. Just like I’d had to catch Melanie when I’d first gone to their father’s house.

Mia had stopped talking and now stared blindly at a spot one foot in front of her on the floor.

“Eddie.”

I looked over at Manetti. She wasn’t squirming against the ropes anymore. And she looked…herself again. Whatever I’d seen in her before was gone. Same with Riehl.

“We killed so many…” Manetti squeezed her eyes shut as if trying to erase the fresh memories of all the killing. “
I
killed so many…”

The hysteria was over.

But maybe the nightmare was just beginning.

The weather had finally turned. The radiator in my apartment worked well, if you were hovered over it. I wasn’t. So I was wearing a sweater and a jacket as I set up the camera attached to my laptop.

I didn’t sleep again last night. So I looked like hell. I surveyed the damage, most of it recent, in the bathroom mirror. The scar under my eye from Witherspoon’s knife was fresh. Other cuts too, but those were hidden. The most noticeable change was the nose. Riehl had broken it and it was crooked now. If I put on forty pounds of muscle I could have played for the Flyers.

I hadn’t seen them in years. I wondered what I’d look like now. What they looked like. I’d seen their pictures on Facebook, of course, but seeing them live would be different.

I tested the camera about a hundred times. I checked my image on the laptop. What would I look like to them?

A message popped up and I clicked the link. The screen went dark for a second as the program linked. I took a deep breath.

Then the screen came back to life.

Stan’s ugly mug filled the screen.

“Eddie!”

He looked good. He worked out religiously so he hadn’t aged a day.

“Stan, good to see you, pal.”

“Good to see you too, finally.” He smiled.

“Where’s the rest of the fam?”

“Moira’s getting the little one up now. Of all days she decides to take an extra long nap.”

“Of all days.”

Stan moved to the side of his camera’s field and I caught a glimpse of the house. Overrun by toys, dolls, and bouncers.

“See what you’re missing?”

I laughed.

Stan said, “Did you take up hockey?”

The nose. “No, your Mom got too excited last night.”

On paper, we were mid-thirties. In reality, we were still a bunch of seventeen-year-olds.

“Very original, less than a minute in and you’re trotting out the Your Mom jokes already.”

“I’m not myself.”

I hadn’t meant it any sort of way. But Stan’s face fell.

He said, “You doing okay?”

“Yeah. I think I’m down to three night terrors a night now.”

I laughed. He didn’t.

“I’ve read the stories,” he said. “Sounds like nobody can agree on what caused it.”

“Yeah.” They’d left a lot out of the official news reports. But I didn’t want to share or talk about it. All I’d done was relive it, night after night. Since the hysteria, I lived in constant fear that whatever it was would switch on inside me again. Would switch on in others.

That was why I was “visiting” Stan and Moira by video. I didn’t trust myself and didn’t want to be around the people I loved yet. Even though Pater had assured me I’d be fine.

“People are leaving in droves,” Stan said. “I can’t even imagine what it was like.”

“You don’t want to.”

Stan brought me up to speed on local news. Sheriff Charlie Waite was still coaching basketball on the side for the local community college. Local author Evan Ronan wanted to talk to me about the trial I’d been involved with in upstate New York a few months back. The guy was always looking for a new idea for a book.

Then I heard Moira in the background. “Massive blowout in her diaper. And then of course she won’t use the changing table anymore.”

Stan gave me a look through the camera.

“Is he on?” Moira said.

“Believe it or not.”

The baby started wailing and Stan left the screen. I heard Moira handing the kid off to Stan. Then Moira got in front of the camera.

“Hey, Eddie.” She smiled warmly.

“Hey there.”

She squinted to see me better. “You look different.”

“Broken nose.”

“Did you take up hockey?”

“You guys are turning into one person.”

She shrugged. “That’s marriage.”

Then the screen jumped as someone adjusted it. Stan appeared, holding their little girl.

“Meet Madison.”

I took her in. She was cheeky and her eyes were slits.

“Guys…she’s amazing.”

“Isn’t she?”

They gave me her entire history. I soaked in the details about their beautiful baby girl. She was a great sleeper, or had been, but now she was teething and teething caused diarrhea for some unknown reason. She was too big for her size two diapers but not big enough for size three. She had tiny feet and hands, though she was in the seventy-fifth percentile for height and weight. She knew baby sign language. I didn’t know there was such a thing, but she could signal with her hands when she was hungry. They shared all the little, personal details of their child and the challenges of parenthood and I took it all in, hanging on their every word and I felt a lightness in my chest that had been M-I-A for a long time.

“You two are the luckiest people in the world,” I said.

“Sometimes,” Moira said.

“Yeah, sometimes,” Stan said.

“Dude, you won the fucking lottery.”

“Language!” Moira yelled.

Madison giggled.

It was the first time I’d ever gotten a baby to giggle. It was magical.

Eventually Madison got fussy and Moira took her to play in the bouncer. It was just me and Stan.

He said, “When are you coming out?”

“I can’t be near her,” I said. “I don’t trust myself. Not yet.”

“
We
trust you.”

“Thanks, but I can’t.”

“Figured as much.” He smiled. “So I’m going to send you something.”

“What?”

He held something up in front of the camera.

A photograph.

It was an old photo of Stan, me, and my brother standing in front of the Moriarty house, site of the team’s last investigation together. Tim looked young. All my life he’d seemed so much older, but now I was older than he had been in the picture, and older than he’d ever be.

I didn’t remember posing for the picture or ever seeing it. Stan and Tim were dressed sharp like always. I was in baggy jeans that probably hadn’t seen the washer in months and a black t-shirt from high school. And my hair was out of control, all over the place.

Then Madison got fussy again. Stan and Moira tried to get her to calm down but she was having none of it.

Stan shrugged apologetically. “Sorry, man, but it looks like we’ll have to cut this short.”

“No worries.”

“It was good to see you, pal.”

“You too, buddy.”

“Come out soon.”

“I will.”

And that was that. I sat in front of the laptop for a long time after, thinking about my friends and their beautiful daughter. And wondering but also not wondering why I felt this big hole in my life.

I was in the car when my cell buzzed. The number was restricted.

“Domino’s Pizza.”

“Hello, Eddie.”

I smiled and banged a right into a strip mall. I had somewhere to be, but it was worth taking the few minutes here. I found an isolated spot and parked.

“Good afternoon, Agent Manetti.”

“Pater asked me to call.”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Okay. He didn’t. But did you get the—”

“Already called my bank, asked them about the large deposit. They confirmed it.”

“You earned it.”

“Yeah I did.”

“Yes, you did.”

I chuckled. “High praise coming from you.”

“Don’t get used to it.”

“I won’t.”

We were quiet for a stretch. A few cars passed on the street.

I said, “You guys figure it out yet?”

“Working hypothesis: the MPI was caused by local social, meteorological, national political, and international militaristic current events.”

“So you have no idea.”

“We will.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“Are you looking for Eamon?”

“You know I am.”

“He was affected, just like Riehl, just like Pater, just like me. Just like you.”

“Nice try, but Eamon wasn’t. I saw him after I’d fully turned and he wasn’t giving off any vibes either way.”

“He’s troubled.”

“He’ll be more troubled when I find him.”

I heard her shut a door. I wondered where she was, if they had an office in some undisclosed location. Or if they’d set up shop somewhere temporarily, just like they had in Oregon.

She said, “Why didn’t you kill me?”

“I wanted to. But I didn’t want to. I can’t explain it.”

“You weren’t yourself. But you were enough yourself.”

“Sounds about right.”

She was quiet.

I said, “How’s Riehl?”

“Back in action. He doesn’t make a great patient.”

“Any hard feelings there?”

“From him? No. But…”

“But?”

“Next time you see him, he’ll want to spar. Be ready.”

I groaned. “Thanks for the heads-up. How are you holding up?”

“Busy. Busy is good.”

“I’ve gotta get busy myself.”

She grew serious. “Eddie, don’t go after Eamon.”

I said nothing.

“One professional to another, don’t go down that rabbit hole.”

“You think I’m a pro?”

She laughed again. “I’m serious. Keep moving forward. No detours to find Eamon Moriarty. Nothing good will come of that.”

“Noted.”

“And Eddie.” She paused a beat. “It’s going to take some work to get through this.”

I knew she was right but I said nothing. I wasn’t sleeping, wasn’t eating much either. I was having trouble focusing. All those things probably added up to a diagnosis that required attention.

Manetti continued. “And it will take a lot of time. You don’t have to process it all at once. What we saw…what we did…your brain has to work through it, piece by piece.”

I said nothing.

Manetti said, “Get help if you need it. Trust me on this. I’m speaking from personal experience.”

“I will,” I lied.

“And keep your cell handy,” she said. “There’s always trouble brewing and Pater likes you.”

“In that case, I’m ditching this thing first chance I get then.”

She laughed. “See you later, Amateur Hour.”

“Stay out of trouble, Agnes.”

I knew
I
wouldn’t.

We hung up and I forgot about my next appointment. It was a cold, grey day that matched my overall mood. I sat in that parking lot for a long time, trying to take some meaning from what had happened.

Eventually, I boiled it down to this: I’d
survived
.

I’d fucking survived.

***********