Most men can't make it through even five words of what I'm about to tell you (13 page)

construction worker sawed off Franky's head, then brought it to my house for some reason. We confronted him and he led

us on a chase to the turkey warehouse where he was shot dead by an agent from a "federal task force." It never occurred to me that Falconer hadn't told us what agency he worked for and the news didn't mention it. Hmmm.

Falconer had apparently omitted one part of John's story, which was the part where the turkeys ate Franky's body. The

news said the body was still missing and a few people would look for it over the next few days, but otherwise the manhunt

was called off. Everything could go back to normal since Franky's severed head was pretty much confirmation he was no

longer a danger. I pictured Franky's corpse swelling to eruption with hundreds of baby mouth bugs and begged to differ.

The cowboy came up to the counter with a copy of
Basic Instinct 2
and
2001: A Space Odyssey
. How could he walk in those jeans? I could make out the exact hang of his penis in those things. Did they inflate when he farted?

I glanced up at the TV, saw a reporter standing in front of the turkey building as a tow truck hauled my Bronco out, front

end smashed and windshield clouded white with cracks. I still drove it home, though. Give credit to the people at Ford.

The cowboy gave me his membership card and I punched in the number. His account came up as:

NAME: James DuPree

OVERDUE: -

ACCT STATUS: A

COMMENTS: THIS MAN HAS WORN THE SAME TROUSERS SINCE HE WAS A TODDLER

Many memos had circulated at Wally's about abusing the Customer Comment box on the computer. We have John to

thank for that. He worked here a few years ago, after I begged the manager to let him on. John was fired a few months

later, but not before he managed to add something to the "Comment" field for pretty much every single customer he

served.

NAME: Carl Gass

COMMENTS: If he doesn't have late charges, and you tell him that he does, he LOSES HIS

FUCKING MIND.

_______________________

NAME: Lisa Franks

COMMENTS: Had sex with her on 11/15

_______________________

NAME: Kara Bullock

COMMENTS: Thinks I have an English accent. Don't forget.

_______________________

NAME: Chet Beirach

COMMENTS: Always smells like fish. I think he fishes for a living. He's sensitive about

it so don't bring it up.

_______________________

NAME: Rob Arnold

COMMENTS: It's the white Patrick Ewing!

_______________________

NAME: Cheryl Mackey

COMMENTS: Had sex with her on 7/16

_______________________

I gave the cowboy his change, glancing over his shoulder at the TV every chance I could get. They were back at the

hospital, the camera showing close-ups of bul et holes in walls and shel casings on the floor.

The cowboy turned to fol ow my gaze, saw the TV. "That's some scary shit, ain't it?"

I said, "Yeah."

"Whole world's comin' to an end, that's what I think."

"Yeah, probably. Have a nice day."

The cowboy left. He stuffed his wal et into his back pocket and I imagined it shooting back out again, squeezed by the

sheer pressure of the fabric.

These days John was working at a warehouse that stored government documents. Apparently most agencies have gone

to a paperless system, al the records on computer, and they have to destroy all their old paper forms after a couple of

years because there's no money in the budget to store them. John got a job on the document destruction team. It seemed

like a perfect job for him. I mean, how can you screw up destroying papers? John told me they pile up al the papers and

shoot them with flamethrowers, but I suspect they just have a big shredder or something.

I met John when I was 14, in an Intro to Computers class in high school. Mr. Gertz. Huge guy with a mustache who used

to interrupt lessons on Windows 95 to give speeches about atheism. Everybody liked John. He could play guitar and do

card tricks and stand on his head. On the other end, most people found me to be unlikable in the way that most people

find dogs to have fur.

I grabbed a DVD and went back to peeling off stickers. I had gotten written up six weeks ago because more DVD's were

stolen on my watch than either of the other two managers. Not sure what I was supposed to be doing to stop it, I guess

running out and tackling the kids who tried to walk out with the goods.

The problem, I decided, was the magnetic anti-theft tags that would activate the door alarm were in the DVD cases, so it

only took the thieves minutes to figure out they just had to pop the disc out of the case and stuff it in their pocket, leaving

the case and the theft tag behind. So I wrote up this angry e-mail, saying the anti-theft system was retarded and that if

they were serious about people not stealing discs, then they should put the anti-theft tags on the discs themselves. After

al , it was the disc that was valuable, not the case.

They agreed, and me and two other employees spent about twelve hours sticking these stiff little stickers to al of the new

releases in the store. The plan worked beautiful y. That is, until last Thursday, when a customer brought in a disc that had

been scratched to hel because the theft sticker came unstuck inside his DVD player. It jammed the little tray when it tried

to eject the disc and he had to pry it out. Two days later, a customer brought in a broken DVD player. When his disc got

stuck thanks to the sticker, he wound up breaking the disc tray on the machine trying to free it.

I wasn't at the store that day, I was on one of my many sick days. But when I came back I was greeted by 27 e-mails from

managers and regional managers and other people I had never heard from before, telling me that every anti-theft sticker

had to be removed from every DVD by November 1st.

I bring this up, again, in case you were wondering why in the holy hell I felt the need to come in to work in the middle of

the apocalypse. The answer is that if I took one more sick day I would be fired, and if I didn't get these stickers off by the

deadline I would be fired, and even if I could talk my way out of one firing I sure as hell couldn't talk my way out of both.

And if I was fired, soon after society would decide I wasn't earning my electricity and water and my house and my food.

And they'd be right. If you think that's a bad reason to come to work in the middle of this, then I'm guessing you're stil

living with Mom and Dad.

I glanced up at the TV and saw something new. Security camera footage, from the hospital. In color, but in a frame rate

that made the people appear to blink down the hal way, teleporting five feet at a time. There was a shot of a woman

running in terror. They cut to a live shot of some older guy in a suit, an expert of some kind they had brought in. Then they

cut back to the security video and I froze.

I heard the DVD I had in my hand fal to the counter.

Did I just see that?

They played it again. The first frame was Franky, in the hall of the hospital, gun in hand, holding a nurse around the

throat. The frames rolled forward, slowly, everybody making jerky movements. A security guard came into frame, hand

out, trying to talk Franky down. Next frame, same players, limbs in different positions. Looked to be about one frame per

second. The next frame was what got me.

At the top of the screen appeared a man in black. Not a Shadow Man, a regular man, in black clothes, black sunglasses.

Next frame - one second later - he was gone.

I stared. They cut back to the anchor. The closed captioning lagged behind but I didn't think I saw any mention of the

mysterious man in the hall.

My cell phone rang. On the screen it said, "JOHN." I picked up.

"Yeah."

"Dave? Can you get to a television?"

"We got one on here. I saw it."

"Man in black, in the hall?"

"Yeah."

"So who's this asshole now?"

"I don't know, John. I'm still peeling off stickers."

"I'm still at your place, everything seems okay here. I've got the crossbow."

"You've got the what?"

"Hey, have you heard from Falconer?"

"No. I figured they sent him home. His case is over, right?"

"Yeah. I'm sure that was the end of it. The thing with the turkeys."

"Yeah. Probably."

"Yeah."

". . ."

* * * * *

street. So he apparently real y had staked out my place al night, during which time I'm guessing he ate most of my food.

He must have heard me pul up because he appeared at the front door before I could even get out of my truck.

I asked, "Any monsters in there?"

"I wasn't paying attention. I got wrapped up in a movie. I'm going home. I left the crossbow."

"Well, thanks for watching the place."

"Sure. Hey, I think something got into your fridge because all of that leftover pizza is gone now."

I pushed through the front door, threw my keys on the table, glanced at the answering machine and saw I had no

messages. A little surprised Amy hadn't called. I surveyed the room, the lamp inside the front door raising an island of

light in the dim little house. Nothing stirred.

I went toward the kitchen, casting sideways glances along the way. Something flew across the big window in the living

room and I gave a start. Probably a bird, though. I see owls around here from time to time. Molly was asleep on my couch.

I flipped on the kitchen light, opened all the cabinets, saw nothing hiding in there. Not much food, either. I tried the freezer, found no monster hiding in there, either. I did find a box of Hot Pockets, little frozen pastries with meat and cheese inside

them. It's the kind of food they feed to prisoners of war to keep them alive.

I took one step toward the microwave, and stopped. A shadow had moved on the floor. Not my own, either.

The dark shape grew, up over the drawers to my left, spilling onto the counter top.

I had time to notice the shadow had no left hand. It spoke.

"Hey."

I spun, saw pale skin and freckles and red hair.

"Amy!"

"John came and got me while you were at work. It was supposed to be a surprise. Oh my god, you look terrible!"

"I know! Amy, you should have stayed aw-"

My words were interrupted by Amy throwing her arms around my ribs, squeezing like she was trying to deflate me. I

hissed in pain. The construction worker may wel have cracked a rib there.

"John told me what happened! Isn't that crazy? What was he saying about the-"

Amy was interrupted by my pul ing her shirt over her head.

"-the turkeys, what was with that?"

"I don't know, I don't know," I said, working the zipper on her pants. "It's been a crazy 24 hours."

"I heard they brought in that detective, the one who works all those serial killer cases? The guy who's always doing the

interviews on Court TV? What's his name?"

We were both naked by the time she made it to the question mark.

* * * * *

I was half asleep, curled up against her in the bed, Amy in the sweats and T-shirt she wore as pajamas.

"Falconer."

"That's right. John says you guys talked to him."

"Mmmm Hmmm."

"Do you think he'l want to talk to me?"

"Why would he?"

"I don't know. Because I know you. I don't know."

"Well, if he does, he does."

"And there's not anything I should tell him? Or not tell him?"

"We're telling him the truth. Wel , not
the
truth, you know, but the truth the way we tel it to people. You know what I mean."

"Okay."

I closed my eyes.

"David?"

"Hmmmmm?"

"Do you ever wish you didn't know any of this? Like if you could just erase it from your brain so you'd be like everybody

else?"

"Sure. Actual y... no. Because if somebody came along and offered me the chance, like if they told me if I took a certain

pill I could make it al go away, I wouldn't do it. I'd be afraid the good stuff would go away, too. Like maybe I imagined al

of it but then maybe I imagined you, too."

"I'm not saying you imagined it all, obviously."

"That's exactly what you would say, if you also were imaginary."

"All right, go to sleep."

"Hey, you started it."

Silence. I drifted off.

"I have this class," she said, "on Social Psychology. And the guy who teaches it, he said the amount of the universe a human can experience is statistically, like, zero percent. You've got this huge universe, trillions of tril ions of miles of

empty space between galaxies, and all a human can perceive is a little tunnel a few feet wide and a few feet long in front

of our eyes. So he says we don't really live in the universe at all, we live inside our brains. All we can see is like a blurry

little pinhole in a blindfold, and the rest is filled in by our imagination. So whatever we think of the world, whether you think the world is cruel or good or cold or hot or wet or dry or big or smal , that comes entirely from inside your head and

nowhere else."

We laid in silence for a while. Final y, I said, "Wouldn't it be nice if that was true?"

Amy's answer was a soft snore.

* * * * *

arm flung over my head, faced turned sideways to see the door of the bedroom.