Blind Panic (16 page)

“Tina, I’m okay. I’m one hundred and ten percent fit. I can always take a couple of breaks along the way.”

Tina pulled a face. “It’s your funeral. Don’t blame me if you fall asleep and ride slap-bang into a telephone pole.”

Tyler went through to his bedroom to change into jeans and a white promotional T-shirt for
Hammer of God,
the last movie that he had worked in, and a faded blue denim jacket. While he did so, Tina tried to contact her city desk again, but she was still unable to get through to them, neither by landline nor cell phone nor e-mail nor text.

“I’ll just have to go down to West First Street and see what’s happening,” she said as Tyler came out of the bedroom. “How about giving me a ride home on that motorcycle of yours so I can pickup my car?”

They left the apartment and went down to the garage at the side of the house. Tyler unlocked the garage door and pushed it open with a creak of unoiled springs. Inside the garage stood a metallic green Mercury Marquis sedan, circa 1971, covered in a fine film of sandy-colored dust; a Kawasaki dirt bike speckled in mud; and a motorcycle shrouded in a black custom-made cover. Tyler lifted the cover and revealed a glossy black Harley Davidson Electra Glide. It smelled of polish and leather and fresh oil.

“I’ve always thought that there’s something very erotic about motorcycles,” Tina said as Tyler climbed astride the saddle.

“Well, the price was sexy enough,” said Tyler. “Not so much change out of twenty thousand dollars.”

“Yes,
but
,” said Tina, as he started up the 1500cc engine, a deep, masculine burble.

Tyler steered the motorcycle onto the driveway. He climbed off to pull down the garage door, and then he climbed back on again and said, “You coming or what?”

Tina lifted herself onto the pillion seat and wrapped her arms around Tyler’s waist. They burbled slowly down the driveway, but as soon as they turned onto the street, Tyler opened up the throttle.

“Orgasmic!” said Tina. “I love it!”

As they sped westward, however, they could see that the sky up ahead of them was growing darker and darker, almost charcoal gray, even though it was not yet noon. Tina leaned forward and shouted, “
Armageddon!
”

Up in the hills and canyons, even more fires were burning. Behind the smoke, orange flames were leaping over a hundred feet into the air, and shoals of sparks were whirling everywhere. The dry leaves of the yucca trees that lined Franklin Avenue were spontaneously starting to burst into flame.

And power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.

When they reached the intersection with North Highland, Tyler tilted the motorcycle north, and then he tilted left onto Camrose. But as they approached La Presa, they saw thick gray smoke billowing across the road. Tyler slowed down, and as they came around the last curve, they saw that the street ahead of them was blocked with blazing cars, and strewn with bricks and torn-down fencing. They could see people running everywhere, and struggling with one another.

Tyler brought his bike to a halt, with the front suspension dipping. “It’s a riot,” he said. “For Christ’s sake, look at them. They’re looting.”

At least thirty young men were smashing their way into one house after another, breaking windows and kicking down doors. The homeowners were trying to stop them, but it was obvious from the way that they were waving their arms and shouting and milling helplessly around in circles that they were blind.

One white-haired man in a maroon tracksuit came lurching across his driveway brandishing a shotgun. “Get the hell out of here!” he screamed. “Get the hell off of my property!" One of the looters struck him across the back with a piece of fence post, and he fired his shotgun wildly into the air. Another looter dodged up behind him and pushed him, and he
fired again. His second shot hit the door of his own Ford Explorer. He was immediately knocked to the ground and kicked by three or four jeering young men.

“Holy Christ,” said Tyler. “Can we reach your home any other way?”

“We could try Outpost Drive,” Tina suggested. “Go back down North Highland and hang a right.”

But as Tyler began to maneuver his motorcycle around so he could go back the way they had come, they saw a pattern of bright flashing lights inside the smoke, as if a crowd of hidden photographers were taking pictures.

Tyler said, “What the hell is
that?
”

The lights flashed again and again, almost
dancing
, and each time they flashed even more intensely. One of the looters suddenly fell to his knees with his hands clamped over his face and started screaming.

“I can’t see, man!
I can’t fucking see!
”

Another looter abruptly dropped the television that he was carrying off, so that it fell on its edge onto the sidewalk, and smashed. He whirled around and around, waving his arms, before he lost his balance and pitched over onto his side.

“I’ve gone blind! Martinez! Help me! I’ve gone blind!
Martinez!
”

A few of the looters started to stumble away, but it was obvious that most of them were confused about what was happening, and reluctant to leave all of their plunder behind. They had loaded themselves up with computers and high tech equipment and had plastic refuse bags crammed with anything they could lay their hands on—silverware, clocks, blenders, bottles of liquor. One of them was even toting a full bag of Callaway golf clubs. But as they hesitated, the lights flashed again, and the smoke was pierced by dazzling shafts of brilliance. Six or seven of the looters were blinded instantaneously. They toppled sideways onto the ground almost as if they had been hit hard with baseball bats, and then they began to twitch around on their backs, like dying stag
beetles, or crawl across the roadway on their hands and knees, shouting for help in a hoarse and desperate chorus.

“
Man! Help me, man! I can’t see nothing! Help me!
”

Tina said, “My God, Tyler. What’s happening?”

“I don’t think we ought to stay here to find out.”

“But this is the
story
, Tyler! These lights! These lights must be the reason why everybody is losing their sight!”

“Maybe they are, but I don’t feel like losing
my
sight, do you?”

He revved the Electra Glide’s engine, but just as he was about to release the brakes, a heavily built man appeared out of the smoke like a stage magician. He was wearing a black suit with a black vest, and a wide-brimmed hat with a conical crown. He was at least seventy yards away, so Tyler was unable to see his face clearly.

The man stood in the middle of La Presa Drive, looking around at the blinded looters as they moaned and shouted and begged and screamed, but making no attempt to help them. The rest of the looters were scattering now, most of them running down Glencoe Way. They left behind them a trail of discarded decorations and DVDs, as well as a coffeemaker and a brown leather jacket.

“Give me your cell,” said Tina.

Tyler took out his phone and listened to it. “It’s still not working. Come on, hold tight, we’re getting out of here.”

“I don’t want to make a call,
stupido.
I want to take a picture.”

“What?”

She snatched the phone from him and held it up to focus on the man in black. She had taken only two photographs, however, before the man in black turned his head and saw her. He frowned, and then he started to walk toward them, with a steady, unhurried but distinctly menacing stride.

“That’s it,” said Tyler, and he twisted the throttle so that the motorcycle surged forward.

But Tina slapped him on the back and screamed out, “Stop!
Stop!
Just for a second!
Stop!
”

Tyler jerked to a halt and twisted around in the saddle. The man in black was no longer walking toward them, since he could clearly see that he had no chance of catching them. But behind him, out of the smoke, at least eight figures had emerged, all of them dressed in bizarre costumes. Their faces were as flat and as white as dinner plates, with slitted eyes, and their bodies looked like makeshift coffins, painted black, with dark red designs on them, and double-jointed arms and legs.

“Now, what in God’s name are
they?
” said Tina.

Tyler shielded his eyes with his hand. He couldn’t work out whether the figures were human or whether they were some kind of mechanical automatons. They certainly looked more like giant puppets than real people, but how could they be? He couldn’t even work out how many there were. Maybe it was the smoke drifting across the road and briefly obscuring them, but sometimes he thought there were nearly a dozen of them, and then he thought that he could count only five, or maybe six. He also found it difficult to decide how near they were, or how far away. Sometimes they appeared to be standing in front of the man in black, and standing only five or six feet high; but then they appeared to be standing well behind him, which would have meant they were almost twice that height.

“They’re an optical illusion,” said Tina. “Maybe some kind of laser projection.” She took three more photographs, but then the man in black and his white-faced figures started to walk toward them again.

“Hold on to me!” Tyler shouted, and they roared back down Camrose Drive, swerving right on North Highland Avenue, and then right again on Franklin, cutting in front of a speeding SUV, whose driver blared his horn at them and furiously gave them the finger.

“
Do prdele!
” Tina screamed back at him.

“What did you say?” Tyler shouted.

“Sorry. My dad is Czech. My family name is Fiala, not Freely. ‘
Do prdele’
is Czech for ‘up yours!’”

They tried Outpost Drive, but they had ridden uphill for only a quarter mile before they splashed into water that was running across the roadway in a crisscross pattern. A few hundred yards farther on they reached a fire department barricade. Through the trees, they could see that six or seven houses were burning and three fire trucks were parked at an angle across the road.

Tyler brought his motorcycle to a halt. A fire captain with a heavy mustache waddled up to the barricade in his boots and said, “Road’s closed, sir.”

“But this is Tina Freely, from the
LA Times.
She urgently needs to reach her car. It’s only up on La Presa Drive.”

“Wouldn’t matter if she was Tina Turner, sir. Road’s closed.”

“Maybe one of your guys could get her car for her?” Tyler suggested.

“We’re firefighters, sir, with all due respect, not parking valets.”

Tyler turned around to Tina and said, “Maybe I can take you down to your office myself.”

“
LA Times
office?” asked the fire captain. “Wouldn’t bother, if I were you. Last I heard, a media helicopter crashed on the rooftop, Bell Jet Ranger, fully loaded with fuel. They had to evacuate the whole building.”

“Oh God,” said Tina. “Was anybody hurt?”

“Haven’t had an update. All of our communications are out.”

Another firefighter called out to him, “Captain! We’re losing pressure fast!” and without another word, the fire captain left them by the barricade.

“So, what do you want to do now?” Tyler asked Tina.

“I’m not sure. I think we should tell somebody about those flashes of light, don’t you? And those things we saw, whatever they were. I mean, suppose they’re aliens, and this is a real, genuine alien invasion? Like
The War of the Worlds.
We should warn people.”

“So who do we tell? And more to the point,
how?
”

“Let’s flag down the first police car we see.”

“And say what, exactly? We know why everybody’s going blind? There’s all these flashes of light, and men dressed up in boxes? Only they’re not really men at all, they’re optical illusions? Or maybe they’re not optical illusions—maybe they’re men from Mars?”

“Tyler, we saw those boys lose their eyesight. That wasn’t any kind of optical illusion. And what else could have caused it except for those lights?”

Tyler checked his watch. It was still only 12:25, but he wanted to make a start for Memory Valley as soon as he could.

“Look,” he said, “why don’t you come with me? Over a hundred people up in Memory Valley have gone blind, too. If we can find out why, maybe we can link the two together, and then we’ll have some
real
proof to take to the cops.”

Tina brushed her hair back and thought for a moment. Then she looked around, and nodded. “Okay…maybe you’re right. It doesn’t look like there’s much I can do here, does it? What with all the phones out and the office evacuated.”

She laid her hand on his shoulder and attempted a smile. “In any case, this should make a really great story in itself, shouldn’t it? Us riding to San Francisco, trying to prove that America has been taken over by aliens?”

“Let’s go, then,” said Tyler. He steered the motorcycle back down Outpost Drive, and then he headed back along Franklin Avenue toward the Hollywood Freeway.

All around them, Hollywood was burning, and the sun was only a pale white disk suspended behind the smoke. There was hardly any traffic on the streets, although somewhere to the southwest they could still hear ambulance sirens blaring, and the deep honk of fire trucks. As Tyler reached the ramp that led up to the freeway, a police squad car approached them from the opposite side of the street. It slowed down, and they were coldly scrutinized by two pairs
of mirror sunglasses. But after a few slow-motion seconds of suspense, the cops seemed to decide that they didn’t look like looters, vandals, or arsonists, and that stopping them would be too much trouble. They sped away, and Tyler and Tina turned north.

Portland, Oregon

“Yes?” I asked.

A man in a black three-piece suit was standing right outside the door. He was tall, at least three inches taller than me, and stockily built, with a big moonlike face pitted with acne scars, and tiny, glittery eyes. His hair was gray and greasy and very long, tied at the back in a ponytail. Underneath his suit he wore a white collarless shirt, and several heavy silver chains around his neck, although if they had pendants fastened to them they were all tucked well out of sight. With both hands, like a respectful mourner attending a funeral, he was holding a black wide-brimmed hat, its crown and its edges shiny with wear.

I looked down at his shoes. I always check out people’s shoes, almost the first thing I do, because shoes speak volumes about people’s character, and their aspirations, and most important of all, how much of the old folderooni they have stuffed in their wallets. All of which is vital information for a fake teller of fortunes—fair fortunes or foul.

This fellow’s shoes were black and dusty, with chisel toes that were slightly turned up. Well-made, but oddly out of style, and they could have done with a touch of the famous Lincoln Stain Wax.

“Help you?” I said.

He gave me the ghostliest ghost of a smile. “It has been
far too long,” he said in a whispery, rattly voice, like dry leaves blowing across a driveway.

“Erm, are you sure you have the correct room here? This is room two-one-three.”

He leaned slightly to one side, as if he were trying to look past me. I leaned the same way, to block his view.

“Harry?” called Amelia. “Who is it?”

“Wrong room,” I called back. I gave the man one of my toothiest, insincerest grins, and repeated, “Wrong room. Sorry. Ask at the desk, why don’t you?”

“He is here,” the man in black whispered. “I have waited with great patience for this moment, and now it has arrived.”

“Look,” I told him, “I have absolutely no idea who you are, or why you’ve come knocking on my door, but you’ve made a mistake here, pal. This is room two-one-three, okay? Go back downstairs and check.”

The man in black showed absolutely no indication that he was going to go away. “I have come for the one who betrayed us,” he said. “This is the time of reckoning, at last.”

“Well, whatever time it is, too bad,” I replied, and shut the door in his face. But then I turned around, and shouted out, “
Ha!
” in shock. The man was standing
inside
the room, right in front of the balcony door, still with his hat held in both hands.

I think Singing Rock was as shocked as I was. “
Tácu eniciyapi hwo?
” he demanded.

“
Háu kola.
” The man in black smiled. “
Khoyákiphela he?
”

“
Tácu eniciyapi hwo?
” Singing Rock shouted at him. I don’t think I had ever heard him sound so angry and so frightened—even in the Sisters of Jerusalem Hospital, back in New York, when Misquamacus had called on the Great Old Ones to wipe us all out, and the ceilings had been collapsing all around us.

“
Tácu eniciyapi hwo?
What is your name?”

The man in black stepped toward him. “You can call me
Wovoka, if you like, my little brother from the plains.” He pressed one hand across his heart. “This, after all, is Wovoka’s body. This is Wovoka’s face.”

“What is your real name?” asked Singing Rock. “Wovoka was a Paiute. You speak to me in Sioux.”

The man in black continued to come closer. “
Whoa
,” I said, holding out one hand. “Why don’t you just keep your distance, feller?”

The man in black ignored me. “I am all men, from all tribes. I speak all tongues, although the tongue of the Sioux always leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. The taste of snake venom.”

He turned to me, still with that ghostliest ghost of a smile on his face. “Do you know how the Sioux got their name? It is what the French invaders called the Nadewisou people, when they first encountered them, and Nadewisou means ‘treacherous snakes.’”

He turned back to Singing Rock. “And
here,
of all the snakes, here is the most treacherous. The one who betrayed his own people not just once, when he was living in the world of touching flesh, but in the afterlife, too, when he was a spirit. And again, now, by helping you.”

Singing Rock raised both arms, his fists clenched and his wrists crossed. “You are not Wovoka, even if you stand here in Wovoka’s body. I know who you are! You must leave Wovoka—let him sleep in peace! Leave all of the spirits that you have disturbed!”

“I have not disturbed them, but raised them,” said the man in black. “Life and death are one circle, and all of those wonder-workers left so much unfinished when they died. Divided and alone, they were defeated. But together, they will bring us back our sacred lands, and our languages, and most of all they will bring us back our pride. We will breathe the wind again, and it will no longer be tainted by the white man’s smoke.”

Now he was towering over Singing Rock, although Singing Rock kept his arms up and his wrists crossed.

“You must leave Wovoka’s spirit!” Singing Rock shouted. “In the name of Something That Moves, Takushkansjkan the Sun! In the name of Wi the Moon, and Wohpe his daughter, the Falling Star! In the name of Ite, the Face!”

He hesitated, and then he almost-screamed out, “
In the name of White Buffalo Calf Woman!
”

One night, after too many shots of Jack Daniel’s had rendered both of us almost unintelligible, Singing Rock had told me all about the gods who were worshipped by the Lakota Sioux, and I knew that White Buffalo Calf Woman was the goddess they revered the most. White Buffalo Calf Woman was the business, apparently, and no Sioux shaman would dare to invoke the name of White Buffalo Calf Woman unless he was desperate.

But the man in black didn’t seem to be at all fazed by these invocations, even the great and holy WBCW He placed his hat carefully on his head, and then he grasped Singing Rock’s upraised wrists.

Amelia snapped out, “
Misquamacus!
”

The man in black hesitated, and lowered his head a little, as if he were waiting for her to say something else.

Singing Rock glanced across the room at her, and then turned back to the man in black. His face was taut with dread, his eyes bulging and the veins standing out on his forehead. He was already dead. He was nothing but a mirage of a human being who had once been John Singing Rock, a memory made visible only by smoke and light and spiritual energy. In reality, he had little more substance than a hologram, but I could see that he was terrified by what he knew the man in black could do to him.

“Misquamacus!” Amelia repeated. “Let him go!”

“You are white, and you are a woman,” said the man in black, without looking at her. “Who are you to command me?”

“I may be a woman,” Amelia replied defiantly, although her voice was trembling with strain. “But at least I’m a
real
woman, who lives in the world of touching flesh. What are
you, Misquamacus? You’re nothing but an echo in empty space. You’re nothing but a shout in the forest that nobody can hear. You can’t exist except in the spirits of others—like Wovoka, or those other wonder-workers whose souls you’ve been dressing yourself up in.”

“You have no idea of my strength,” said the man in black. As he spoke, he gradually forced Singing Rock’s arms downward, and at the same time he pried his wrists apart. Singing Rock may be have been made of nothing more than ectoplasm, but he grimaced in pain and effort. Even though, technically, he was a ghost, he was substantial enough for the man in black to hurt him.

“Okay, that’s enough!” I said. I came away from the door, crossed the room, and took hold of the man in black’s sleeve. He turned his head and spat at me.

He didn’t punch me, or give me a head butt. He didn’t even take his hands off Singing Rock. But I had never been hit so hard, ever. I was flung back across the room so violently that I hit one of the armchairs and two of its legs collapsed. I rolled sideways onto the floor, twisting my shoulder.

“All right, that’s it!” I told the man in black. I climbed back onto my feet and approached him again, my knees slightly bent and my hands raised in what I hoped was a convincing karate posture. Maybe I had never taken lessons, but I had seen
Enter The Dragon
four times.

But Amelia caught at my arm and warned, “Harry—don’t even think about it. He could easily kill you! It’s your bracelet! Get your bracelet!”

“What?”

“Your
bracelet
, Harry! Blow out the candle and get your bracelet back! Singing Rock’s trapped here until you do!”

I didn’t really understand what she was trying to say to me, but I stepped away from Singing Rock and the man in black, my hands still raised, and backed over to the dining table, where the cinnamon-smelling candle was still burning, with my black-pebble bracelet shining around its base.

When I reached out for it, however, the man in black spat at me again—and I was given a hefty shove on the shoulder that sent me sprawling onto the rug.

“You will stay where you are, white fool!” he cautioned me. “It is not your place to interfere.”

“Oh, you think? I’m calling the desk. Let’s see how a three-hundred-year-old echo deals with hotel security.”

The man in black stared at me balefully, and even though he looked like the Paiute wonder-worker Wovoka, I could see in his eyes who he really was. Misquamacus, the One Who Went and Came Back.

“Bring it on, why don’t you?” I challenged him. “You want your revenge so bad, why don’t you have a go at
me!
”

“I will—you can be sure of that,” the man in black whispered. “But before I do, I want you to witness your people laid low, as mine were. You are a fool and a blusterer, and you have no magic. But your meddling has thwarted me from taking my revenge—until now.”

“Oh, I thwarted you, did I?” I retorted. “Well, let me tell you something, Misquamacus, I’m going to thwart you again. You’re going to be so goddamned thwarted, you won’t know what hit you. I’m going to be the very thwart of you, dude!”

The man in black didn’t take his eyes off me, but now Singing Rock suddenly cried out—an echoing, hair-raising wail that sounded as if he were screaming in a tunnel. I heard a crackling noise, and a wide part appeared in Singing Rock’s hair, revealing his red-raw scalp. There was a momentary pause, and then his scalp started to peel away from the top of his head, like a red tulip slowly opening its petals.

He screamed again in unbearable agony, but his skin continued to unroll from the top of his head downward, exposing his eyeballs and his cheek muscles and his nose. His lips were turned inside out, exposing his tongue and his grinning, tobacco-stained teeth.

I launched myself at the man in black a second time, but again he jerked his head and spat at me, and I was thrown
back so hard that I felt as if I been hit by a car. The back of my head was knocked against the wall and I fell awkwardly onto the floor, and a framed print dropped on top of me. Winded and bruised, I tried to get up again, but Amelia knelt down beside me and said, “Harry, no—there’s nothing you can do!”

Singing Rock screamed again, as shrill as a tortured cat. His skin was now peeling down his neck, revealing his carotid artery and his Adam’s apple, bloody and glistening I could actually see his Adam’s apple rising and falling as he cried out in pain.

“For Christ’s sake!” I said. “I can’t let him do this!
Misquamacus! Misqua-goddamned-macus!
”

The man in black was still gripping Singing Rock’s wrists as Singing Rock’s skin unrolled from his shoulders, unrolling his coat and his shirt along with it. His chest muscles and his tendons and his veins were exposed, and all the bubbly connective tissue that held his body together. He looked now like one of those anatomical models, with all of its insides showing, except that his muscles and his tendons were twitching with pain, and his lipless mouth was dragged down in a silent howl of despair.

“Harry—
don’t!
” Amelia insisted. “Singing Rock is dead already! Misquamacus is making him suffer, but he can’t kill his spirit!”

“That’s not the goddamned point! Singing Rock saved our lives! I’m not going to let that bastard hurt him—even if he
is
dead!”

I pulled myself onto my feet and lunged toward the dining table. Immediately I was struck again by something or somebody that I couldn’t see. The blow caught me right on the side of the head, so that my ears sang. But I managed to fall forward, and sprawl across the top of the table, and reach out for the candle and the black-pebble bracelet.

“
Ecúnsniyo!
” barked the man in black, and the candle flame roared up into a white-hot jet of fire that reached right
up to the ceiling and set fire to the lampshade. The heat scorched my face, and I smelled my hair burning. I had no choice but to back away, shielding my face with my hand, and as I did so I was hit yet again, across the shoulders, with a crack that felt as if it almost broke my spine.

I fell down onto my knees, coughing. But it was then that I saw the broken chair legs, easily within reach. I picked it up and gripped it as tight as I could.

I looked up. Singing Rock had stopped screaming now, but he was shuddering violently. By now the man in black had unrolled both Singing Rock’s clothes and his skin almost down to his knees, baring his stomach muscles and his thigh muscles. All of the skin had been peeled off his penis so that it was only a thin, bloody string.

Amelia was standing in the corner with her hand clasped over her mouth, her eyes wide with horror.

I stood up and lurched toward the dining table again. The candle flame roared even higher, and even hotter, but I swung the chair leg and knocked it onto the floor. It fell onto the rug, where it kept on burning, its white flame playing against the wall as fiercely as an oxyacetylene torch. But I wasn’t worried about that; I reached across the dining table and snatched the black-pebble bracelet and slipped it back onto my wrist.