Dead Roots (The Analyst) (22 page)

“I'm sorry, did I hear you right?”

“Niku no Ki Akebara. You know that name, don't you?”

Tom swallowed. “Akebara. The Tree of Flesh,” Tom said as calmly as he could manage. “The monster in my closet.” His head spun. “It makes sense... The closets. The mold... the nightmares.”

“Nightmares? You're having nightmares?”

“How could it be here?” Tom demanded sharply. “Akebara was exorcised in California. The house was condemned. How can it be in West Virginia?”

“I don't
know
, Tom.”

“No, this doesn't make any
sense.
Akebara never became Objective. Akebara never kidnapped me. The hauntings don't match.
Nothing
matches. The only similarity...”

“Wet floors,” Margaret cut in. “Wet closet floors. Like it rooted there.”

“In two separate places,” Tom shouted into the receiver. “I was told Akebara was contained. It was dormant.
Nobody
lived in that house after me. How can it be here?”

“Tom, calm down.”

“I get it now. The exorcist, Susan's nightmares... she was being haunted the same way I was. Akebara was living in her closet, just like it did with mine. But
how?
”

“Tom, I told you, we don't know yet. We're working on it. Take a deep breath.”

Tom sucked a long drag off of his cigarette and looked over the nearby hills. He shied away from them when he saw the trees on their skyline. Could the tree of flesh be in those woods somewhere?

“Then what are these things we've been seeing?” Tom added. “These mutilated people.”

“That's for Artie and Keda to find out,” Margaret said with a sigh.

“So what do we do now?”

“
You
don't do anything, Bell. I'm pulling you off the case.”

Tom's heart fell into his stomach. “
What?
”

“You're too close,” Margaret said firmly. “You'll compromise the investigation. You have to leave. I'll have someone else out there in two days.”

Tom mind was awash with a mixture of guilty relief and anger. He wasn't sure what to feel, so instead he just shouted.

“What the
fuck,
Margaret?” Tom spat through a mouthful of smoke. “I bring you results and you're throwing me off the case?”

“I thought you wanted some time off.”

“No,
fuck
this. Do you know what this thing did to me? Do you know what it did to my life?”

“Of course I know. That's why you can't stay there. You’re too familiar.”

“What the fuck are you
talking about?
”

“Tom, listen to yourself. You're emotional, you're angry, you want revenge-- you're too vulnerable. It will feel you coming and it will
use
you. I know you understand that. If this was anyone else you'd agree with me, one hundred percent. You have to leave.”

Tom squeezed the cellphone as if trying to crush it.

“Whatever, I'm getting to the bottom of this.”

“Tom, I'm just going to text Artie and tell him.”

“Fuck you, Margaret.”

Tom snapped the phone shut. He turned around and tried to bury his fist in the side of the dumpster, only succeeding in hurting his hand and causing a loud noise. He knelt down, rubbing his knuckles and tossing his cigarette aside angrily.

He seethed and felt his heart rate rising. His breathing quickened. The ground under his feet felt strange and unreal. So did everything else. The boarded-up pharmacy loomed over him, standing as a monument to his insignificant life. His tiny, pointless body floated in some random point in space. He tried to look out into the distance at the tranquil mountains, but constantly shifted his eyes back to the concrete in front of him.

There was a panic attack coming. There was no stopping it. His heart threatened to explode, every unfeeling atom promising to split apart at the slightest incorrect thought.

Tom reached frantically reached into his wallet, trying to pull out the small packet of pills he kept there. He dropped them. He swore loudly into the sky and scrambled to pick the pills back up.

Tom pushed a pill out of the foil packet and clutched it between his fingers while clumsily stuffing the wallet and the rest of the pills back into his pocket. He practically threw the little tablet into his mouth, and let it sit there with a bitter tang on his tongue, before he realized he had nothing to drink.

He took a deep breath. He used his tongue to push the pill into the gap between his cheek and his molars. He stood up and started an approach towards the entrance of the bar. Off-balance, his left shoulder scraped along the side of the building, and he clutched his right hand to the side of his head protectively.

He finally found himself stumbling through the entrance. He kept his head low as he made his way to the table and sat down. His coworkers looked up at him with alarm.

“Water,” he stated.

“What?” Artie said.

“Water. Water, water, fucking water,” Tom demanded, slamming his open palm against the surface of the table. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat and tried to hide his face from the large windows.

“Tom, are you alright?” Keda asked, reaching a hand out. Tom smacked it away.

“Just get me some fucking water,” he shouted. The other lone patron of the bar, an overweight trucker, looked over at him with a frown. Tom didn't notice, nor would he have cared.

“Panic attack,” Artie said with a grunt. “Hang on Tom, just hold out, buddy. I'll be right back.”

“Thank you,” Tom said, turning his head away as Artie stood up from the table. Dawes finished off her beer and raised an eyebrow at him.

“The fuck, pal?”

“Shut up, just give me a minute,” Tom snapped. He took loud, ragged breaths through his nose.

“Did you smoke some bad pot or something? Fuck.”

“Just
shut up,
” Tom said through gritted teeth. He ground his elbow against the table. Keda just sat back, looking helpless and disturbed.

Artie returned with a large glass full of ice water. He handed it to Tom, leaning over him and patting him on the shoulder.

“Here you go, buddy.”

“Thank you.” Tom shakily gulped down several mouthfuls of water. The cold liquid numbed his throat. He rubbed at his Adam's apple and neck muscles fervently, and then clutched his hand to his chest. His heart rate rose as the Xanax went into his stomach. He hated the thought of a chemical forcing his body to slow down, something controlling his mind. But he knew in a few minutes he'd care a lot less.

“What's up, man? Just stressed out?” Artie asked, rubbing Tom's shoulder reassuringly.

“Akebara,” Tom choked out. “
It's Akebara.
”

Artie's eyes widened. He helped Tom out of his seat.

“Come on, we gotta go,” Artie said. Keda nodded.

“Is he alright?” Keda asked.

“He will be. I'll explain in a minute. We need to go.”

“Miss Dawes, will you be alright? Can you meet us later?”

“Yeah, I'll be here. Call me Heather.”

Dawes slumped back into her seat. Tom brushed Artie's hand away, following him with his shoulders hunched forward to the relative safety of the car.

********

Tom stood under an outcropping of balcony that stuck out over the door to their motel room. The sun was creeping towards the horizon and the pill had long since taken hold. High school girlfriends and lost career opportunities floated through his head, towards all of which he maintained a stoic indifference. He was thinking about calling Margaret back to apologize when Artie came outside to join him for a smoke.

“Hey,” Tom said quietly.

“Hey, man,” Artie said cheerfully, lighting his cigarette. “You alright?”

“Yeah. Haven't had one like that in a while.”

“I know. Last one that bad was... what, two, three years ago?”

“Well. I don't want to make a big thing out of it,” Tom said as he stuffed the cigarette between his teeth. He leaned idly against the wall, shifting his weight occasionally for lack of anything else to do with himself. “Generally they only last about thirty seconds these days. I just don't wanna go back to all that.”

“You're fine,” Artie said reassuringly. “It's physically impossible. The human brain and body can't go from zero to screaming panic on a regular basis without experiencing anticipatory anxiety.”

“I don’t know about all that. I hardly think about the physical possibility of it when it's happening.”

“Physics are all we got, man,” Artie said with a chortle. “You've told me you worry the world isn't, I dunno, 'real' and shit, but what is that?”

“It's hard to explain to someone who doesn't have it.”

“Why so glum, though?”

“You and I work with the supernatural and the dead every day. It's hard not to feel futile in the face of the shit we see. Like the world's just a rotting veil, pulled over our eyes to hide something much more terrible and bleak.”

“Maybe the demon world is a shitty little hole, and they wanna come up to our world, because that's what it's really all about. Y'ever just look at the stars when it gets dark, man? Look at those woods now, even. If I lived in the world where something like Aki came from, I'd want out too.”

“Yeah, and look at war and starvation in the Middle East, and little girls locked in basements while their fathers molest them,” Tom said darkly. “The world's hardly the sum of all of our western, white, middle class experience.”

“That's people, man, not life,” Artie rebuked. “Life's just waking up and seeing the sun. Some motherfucker wants to kill somebody after that, then that can be fixed.”

“Fixed? Mankind's been finding new and amazing ways to beat each other’s brains out since the caveman days. I'll tell you what, that's why this Harold guy scares the living shit out of me,” Tom said as he lit a new smoke idly. “The club, the sword, the gun, the atomic bomb... is Harold the next step? How long is it before someone weaponizes Mediums?”

“That shit is gonna kill you one day,” Artie chided at Tom as he put away his pack of cigarettes.

“I'm more likely to be killed in action than live long enough to get lung cancer. Fuck it.”

“Sure are a depressed kind of guy, Tom.”

“Yeah. You mind if we change the subject? I was just getting level.”

“Sure, sure. Where's Keda?”

“Off to find a conduit, he said,” Tom said, eyebrows rising in bemusement. “We're gonna have a séance and try to find out what we can do about this thing. But not like it'll matter much, I'm out of here tomorrow, apparently.”

“What?” Artie asked incredulously.

“Maggie's throwing me off the case. Says I'm too close. She's right,” Tom said quickly before Artie could respond, leaving him instead to just mutter to himself.

“Fuckin' A, man,” Artie said sadly. He looked out at the dimming streets. “I don't wanna work with some douche. Me and you are a team.”

“It's just one case.”

“Any case can be the last case,” Artie replied indignantly. “No case is just one case. This is a serious haunting, man. I think something's wrong with the people.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Tom said with a smoky chortle.

“Like, really. This place... I'm not surprised you're having panic attacks, dude, there's nobody on the streets... that diner yesterday was almost empty. This place is eating itself from the inside out.”

“Or the outside in,” Tom added sardonically. “Map of the missing people shows them all from the outskirts of town, spiraling inwards. Akebara's starting on the edges and working towards the center.”

Artie and Tom looked at each other. They shared a moment of perturbed silence.

“Did you just--” Artie began.

“Figure something out? I think maybe.”

“Shit,” Artie sighed. “I'll run it past Margaret, I guess.”

“
Blegh,
” Tom groaned. He sucked in some more smoke. With a thoughtful frown, he stood to attention suddenly.

“Artie, have you still got those files?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I look at something?”

“Sure, they're inside,” Artie said, flicking away his cigarette. Tom did the same and followed Artie into their small motel room. Artie sat down at a little table by the beds. The manila envelope Dawes had given them rested there. He opened it, sliding the files out and pushing them across to Tom, who sat down across from him. Tom rifled through each of them.

“What are you looking for?” Artie asked.

“I'm checking the actual missing persons reports for a theme,” Tom said as he perused the papers intently.

“Any common elements,” Artie affirmed with a nod. “I’m on board.”

“Right. Looking at this... hang on...”

Tom pushed two papers aside and looked at the third. He ran his finger to the bottom of the page, then the next, then the next.

“Yeah. Look at these,” said Tom. He pushed the discarded papers over to Artie as he continued to read. “All of these people had neighbors within the nearest mile, if not in the trailer or house over, and they all said the last time they saw the person was the evening before their disappearance.”

“Meaning what, exactly?”

“Meaning they all disappeared in the middle of the night,” Tom said, looking up at Artie intently. “And there's been one person disappearing every few weeks for the past several months...”

“And the most recent was two weeks ago,” Artie said, eyes widening.

“Right. Someone could go missing
tonight
, if we're lucky.”

“How do you mean, lucky?”

“Look at the map,” Tom said, spreading the map across the table. “I thought I noticed this before, but it didn't occur to me at the time... Akebara really is spiraling inwards. It started here,” Tom pointed at the Bailey house, the furthest from the center of town. “And it's going clockwise. Each person is closer and closer to the center...”

“So the next one is...”

Tom ran his finger across the map, following the line. He came to a small housing project a couple of miles away from the motel and tapped it emphatically.

“Right here,” Tom said, his voice strengthening. “This is the next spot. Someone from this neighborhood is going to go missing this week.”