Fixer (35 page)

“Shh.” He had to operate on the assumption that whatever Kilroy was, he understood the English language.

Maggie sat up and looked around. Kilroy moved to the open space near the closet, but Maggie’s eyes didn’t track that because she couldn’t see him. She instead looked over at Corrigan again. He nodded almost imperceptibly.

“You sure?” she asked.

“Positive.”

“Okay. Okay. Now what do we do?”

“Someone’s coming.”

The door to the room swung open, causing Maggie to jump and let out a little yelp that, in a different context, might have been very amusing. One of the floor nurses walked in.

“Hi!” she whispered, moving with the quiet grace of someone who was used to maneuvering around sleeping people on a daily basis. “Just doing my rounds, don’t mind me.”

“Sure . . .” Maggie said, rubbing her eyes. “Fine.”

Corrigan involuntarily found himself holding his breath as the future version of the nurse stepped right in front of Kilroy and around the end of the bed.

“What time is it?” Corrigan asked.

“It’s about one, dear,” she said. The nurse was at an age where she could call anybody
dear
and get away with it. “And what good folks you all are, staying with her like this.”

She went to work checking the IV drip and recording Erica’s pulse rate with her watch. “Yes,” she went on, “this one is a miracle, isn’t she? Steady as she goes.” She put down Erica’s wrist. “I think she’s going to be all right.”

“Is there still an officer outside the door?” Maggie asked.

“Yes, ma’am. Wide-awake and bored silly. You know, you two might want to retire for the night yourselves. I’m sure she’ll be just fine until morning.”

“I think we better stay here,” Corrigan said.

“Well then, at least make yourselves comfortable.” She was heading for the closet, which both Corrigan and Kilroy could see about to happen. Kilroy stepped to the side, well before the nurse reached the closet door and slid it open. “Hang up your coats.”

There is a demented semi-human killer standing ten inches away from you,
Corrigan thought.
And you don’t even know he’s there.

It occurred to Corrigan at that moment that he had no idea how a creature stuck in the future could do damage to people stuck in the present. Kilroy existed with their future selves, but by the time their future became their present, he’d already moved on, because he was always ahead.

The bat
, he thought.
He’d have to use the bat.

The dead in McClaren had been beaten with a mop-handle or shot with a gun or, in one case, slammed by a door. But if the Kilroy who’d been there that day was like the one before him now, he could just as easily have choked someone with those long fingers or done something comparatively gruesome. And Erica was stabbed with a kitchen knife and hit in the head with a baseball bat. Objects, it seemed, were not subject to the same restrictions as the one who held them.

“Thanks,” Maggie said to the nurse. “That’s a good idea.”

“Coffee’s down the hall,” the nurse pointed out, adding, “we’re always happy to help the FBI.”

“Glad to hear it,” Maggie said. The nurse left the room with a smile.

“Corrigan,” Maggie said, a bit louder with the nurse gone. “What now?” She looked ready to wake up Erica, even though she was clearly not ready to be moved.

“Don’t know,” he said, although he sort of did. When Harvey was put into a similar situation, he did the only thing he knew how to do. Try and kill the Kilroy before it hurt anybody. Unfortunately, in Harvey’s case he had also terrorized an entire hospital, accidentally killing a number of the people he had been trying to save. It made for an excellent cautionary tale, but it also held an important point. The thing went to the hospital to kill Harvey and went through anybody who got in the way. Which meant Corrigan and Maggie were hardly safe, provided this Kilroy had similar character traits—and given his track record, that seemed like a good bet.

But what Corrigan also knew was that if these things didn’t like to be seen—were, perhaps, afraid to be seen—the only way to keep Erica safe was to offer up a different target.

If Harvey were still there, he’d tell Corrigan he was crazy for even considering such a thing.

He pulled himself out of the chair, the blood rush causing the world to go squiggly for a second or two. It felt as though he’d been sitting there for days.

“What are you doing?” Maggie asked, or was about to ask. It looked like he wasn’t quite perfect with his identification of the present, as he heard her say it a couple of times. And the boy wasn’t around anymore to tip him off on when to speak.

“Just stretching,” he said casually. He kept Kilroy in view out of the corner of his eye. He still wasn’t moving. Corrigan stretched, just as he said he would.

“Going for a jog?” she asked.

“Maybe.”

Maggie stood as well. And whether she knew it or not, she ended up positioning herself right between Kilroy and the still-sleeping Erica Smalls. “Did I tell you how much I like that dress?” Corrigan asked.

“Designer,” she said. “Probably ruined.”

Kilroy moved. It was an odd thing to watch, because unlike everyone else, the bald man didn’t have a past and a future, just a present
in
the future. 

Thinking about it made Corrigan’s head ache.

He can’t stand around forever
, was his next thought. 

That seemed to be the same conclusion the killer reached as he decided, right then, to take care of all three of them, starting with Maggie. In the future, Kilroy’s bat connected with the back of her head.

“Maggie,” Corrigan said, “don’t move.”

At the last possible moment, Corrigan stepped between them and blocked the bat with his hand. From Maggie’s point of view, it must have looked like Corrigan was defending himself against empty air, even though the impact of the bat on the palm of his hand made a loud
PAP!

Kilroy jumped back and shook his head, looking like a dog that’d been slapped across the nose with a rolled-up newspaper. Then he took a swing at Corrigan.

He saw in his own future how the bat impacted him flush across the nose. It was so real he could taste the blood and feel the solid shock of impact travel through his body and wobble his knees. He could even see the floor coming up to greet him. But then he dodged, and the bat whistled through empty space.

Again, Kilroy stepped back and looked about, confused.

“Corrigan, what’s—”

“He’s putting it together,” he said. “Guess he’s never met someone like me before.”

Kilroy looked him in the eye and displayed a new expression for him—fear.

“That’s right, asshole,” Corrigan said. “I can see you.”

And then, to his surprise, Kilroy turned and ran. Corrigan saw him doing it and dove at where his legs were going to be, but of course they were already gone. He saw the creature exit the room while lying on the floor.

“You stopped him!” Maggie said happily.

Corrigan pulled himself to his feet and headed for the door. “Where are you going?” Maggie asked.

*  *  *

Officer Harry Kupchak hated working the night shift, hated even more working the night shift when the assignment in question required him to be attentive the entire time, and absolutely despised beyond all words any assignment that stuck him on a chair in the hospital for the night. It was even worse than working as a security guard—something he did for five years before he was accepted to the force—because at least in the mall there were perks. Especially in the summer, when half the young women in the city of Cambridge dressed like off-duty hookers, or so it sometimes seemed. Here, he had nurses to look at, but it appeared that all the attractive nurses in the hospital were elsewhere, possibly worked only days, and maybe not even in this hospital. The girl he was guarding was pretty cute, but he’d only gotten one glimpse of her a couple of nights ago when she was still in a coma, and, well, being attracted to someone in a coma meant there was probably something wrong with you, so he didn’t dawdle in that regard.

He didn’t even fully understand why he was there. When he checked in with Clancey, he was told that the FBI chick and some other
consultant
were in the room and he wasn’t to disturb them. It seemed to Harry if they were inside there, was no reason for him to be out in the hallway at all. Granted, Clancey’s description of how the FBI chick was dressed whetted Harry’s interest, but as she had not stepped out at all since his arrival, he wasn’t holding out on the hope that she would any time soon.

It was well into his fourth hour in the chair when he heard some sounds coming from the room. It was early morning and the floor was quiet, so noises weren’t difficult to pick up on. He’d already heard two of the nurses discussing psoriasis in embarrassing detail from the front desk a good thirty feet away and around a corner. This noise was somewhat like the sound of a foul ball on a bare hand. 

Harry stood and faced the door, debating whether to open it. He looked down the hallway in both directions—he was there, ostensibly, to make sure nobody entered, rather than worry about someone exiting—and then listened some more to see if the noise repeated. There was talking in the room, but Harry couldn’t pick up what was being said. 

He unclipped the holster for his handgun, possibly more because the coffee he’d been drinking for the past couple of hours was making him edgy than because of any real danger. Then something hit him in the chest. His first thought was that he’d been shot, except that he had heard no gunshot ring out, which one should rightly expect to hear first under these circumstances. Still, the blow felt an awful lot like he always imagined it might feel to take a load in the chest while wearing his vest. Basically, his whole ribcage was shoved toward his backbone. He hit the wall gasping for breath and was facedown on the floor before he fully realized it.

Clutching his chest and feeling around for a bullet hole—there
had
to be one—he managed to crawl up onto his knees when someone came barreling out of the room—a big dude Harry had never met before. The guy stumbled over him, and Harry ended up on his back with the guy on his knees on top of him. Having no breath to speak of, Harry didn’t have anything to say to the big guy, who looked down at him, apologized, and then stood up and sprinted down the hall toward the elevators.

“Corrigan!” someone shouted from in the room. The FBI chick flew out—Clancey’s description didn’t do her justice—and saw Harry lying on the floor. She knelt down beside him.

“Are you hurt?” she asked.

“M’okay . . .” he rasped. His lungs seemed to be developing a rhythm again, which was good. But he thought maybe one of his ribs was busted. This was bad, as he still didn’t know what had hit him, and that would make for one very embarrassing incident report.

“Nurse!” she shouted. “This man needs assistance!” To Harry she asked, “Where’d Corrigan go?”

He pointed. She nodded. “Call for backup. I think you got nailed pretty good there, officer; you need to get someone else down here as soon as you can. She cannot remain unattended. Understand?”

He nodded and started fumbling around for his radio, which was attached to his belt beside the butt of his gun . . . which, he suddenly realized, was no longer there.

“. . . gun . . .” he whispered.

She was getting to her feet and about to walk away. She couldn’t hear him.

“Hey!” he said, louder and,
oh, that hurt
.

“What?” she asked.

“That guy . . . tripped . . . took my gun.”

She stared at him for a second. “He didn’t trip,” she said. “He couldn’t have.”

“Then . . .”

“He did it on purpose.”

She ran off, muttering something as she went. Harry couldn’t quite catch all of it, something about McClaren.

*  *  *

Corrigan checked the safety with his thumb as he ran down the hospital corridor toward the elevators. It was a slow night in the ICU, which was a very good thing as he had quickly discovered that he wasn’t nearly himself yet, despite the short nap and the ingestion of a number of candy bars. The faster he ran, the more there was to take in, until he had a serious overabundance of input to have to cope with, and his ability to filter out the future in favor of the present was quite clearly still broken. He wouldn’t have been surprised to see the back of his own head running in front of him.
Just keep going
, he thought, shoving the gun into his pocket.

Ahead of him—temporally and spatially—the front end of his hypothetical Corrigan centipede caught sight of Kilroy rounding the corner of the central elevator and ducking into the stairwell. Corrigan hit the door for the stairs shortly thereafter. No, that wasn’t right. He hadn’t even reached the door yet.

“Wait, dammit!” he heard Maggie shout. He looked back to see her running, running, running even as he reached the door, while on the other side of the door he was already trying to figure out which way Kilroy had gone.
Too much going on.

Since the ICU was on one of the hospital’s middle floors, the stairs went both up and down. He was nearly positive Kilroy would have gone down, as he looked hell-bent on getting away from Corrigan. But he wouldn’t put it past the thing to head up a couple flights, find a different stairwell, then double back down and take out Erica while Corrigan was somewhere below. So rather than choose, Corrigan decided to go both up and down.

This turned out to be easier than one might have imagined. By favoring neither direction, he ended up choosing both. Had he been well rested, this approach would have never occurred to him, but his head was so muddled and his sense of reality so bent, it seemed like a perfectly reasonable option.

And it worked, so he was not about to question how he was doing it. His going-down self spotted the Kilroy a flight below, while his going-up version found only an empty landing. He abandoned the latter future and continued down.

Downstairs, the very edge of his future self spotted his quarry exiting onto the second floor of the building, while at the same time he heard Maggie enter the stairwell and shout his name again. She seemed to be extremely agitated. He couldn’t imagine why.