Phoenix (6 page)

Brad’s walks turned from a daily thing into a
weekly thing, then stopped altogether.

* * *

Brad slammed the door behind him. "Well, I
didn’t get the shopping done." He yanked off his scarf and threw it
at the coatrack, coming nowhere close to hitting the hook and being
too mad to stop and pick it up.

"Problem?" Mort paused mid-stir at the stove.
He was cooking dinner that night at Brad’s.

"Oh yeah. We got a problem alright." Brad
struggled with his jacket, finally jerking his arms out and
throwing it at the couch. Twenty feet away. "We have a huge
problem. Apparently I can’t go to Wal-Mart now. Ain’t that a kick
in the teeth!" Brad stormed to his bedroom.

As soon as the door slammed shut, Mort
scurried over, grabbed the scarf and coat, and hung them on the
rack next to the front door. He glanced around to make sure nothing
else was out of place, then headed down the short hall and knocked
on Brad’s bedroom door. "How bad was it this time?"

"I passed out in the feminine products
aisle," a muffled voice replied.

"You know, I’ve heard periods can have that
effect."

"Shouldn’t you be cooking something?"

"Come on," Mort chuckled, "tell me what
happened while we eat."

Fifteen minutes later they sat around the
small kitchen table eating spaghetti and garlic bread. Brad poked
his with a fork and pushed the noodles around with the bread.

"Don’t play with your food," Mort said.

Brad stared at him. Mort didn’t notice and
kept shoving food in his mouth. Brad sighed and downed the rest of
his Coke.

"I was fine when I got there. Figured I’d cut
through the toiletries. That’s when it started."

"Vision?"

"Same shit, different place. The whistling
started, so I knew one was coming." Brad rubbed his face and forgot
about his dinner. "But then I started seeing things, and I couldn’t
tell where the vision started and the real world began."

"What did you see?" Mort’s dinner was
forgotten, too.

"Same
thing
, Mort. Dead people." Brad
met Mort’s stare with a pair of red-rimmed eyes. "Everywhere I
looked, they were all dead. And I thought to myself, ‘Has it
started? Is this it?’ Two seconds before, they looked normal, then
they didn’t. Like they were wearing ghosts. Fuzzy and blurry. I
couldn’t see details, but I saw enough to know they were dead.
Walking dead Wal-Mart customers."

"Well, they were pretty much zombies already,
weren’t they?"

"Goddammit, Mort. Stop turning this into a
joke. I didn’t say zombies."

"Walking dead. Zombies. How many times do I
have to tell you, they’re the same thing?"

"No. I’m not seeing zombies, awake or asleep.
Just regular old dead people."

Mort pushed his plate back and leaned
forward. "Oh, really? Regular old dead people? Then why the hell
are they up and walking around? Huh? You’ve had dreams where these
regular old dead people attack living people and eat them! That’s
not normal, Bradley! That’s not
regular
."

The kitchen fell into silence. Brad was
taking a breath to apologize when Mort dropped his fork on his
plate.

"Brad, it doesn’t matter what you believe.
Not really. You don’t have to believe in a group of suit-wearing
evil geniuses planning the apocalypse, or in the Book Club, or even
in me."

"Mort—"

"No." Mort held up a hand. "Let me finish.
You don’t have to believe in any of those things. But you
have
to believe in yourself. You, Brad." Mort jabbed a
finger at him. "Look at your track record. Things that happened
when you were growing up. Hell, in just the past ten years you’ve
prevented I don’t know how many incidents. Why? Because of the
things you saw beforehand. You were
right
. What about all
those times you weren’t able to stop shit from happening? Your mom
and dad’s accident? That was more about you being too slow than
your premonitions being wrong, and you know it."

Brad sat back. "If you’ve got a point, you
better get to it."

"My point is this: your prems are right
ninety-five percent of the time. So I don’t give a damn whether you
believe any of the things you’ve been seeing lately, and it doesn’t
make a difference whether they’re metaphors or not. What I
do
give a damn about is the fact that, as scary as this is,
it’s
going
to
happen
. What we need to be doing
now is pulling together to find a way to stop this. The Club and I
can only do so much. We need you to commit, to involve yourself.
Help us, Brad." Mort scooted his chair back. "Help us."

He left Brad stewing in the kitchen, locking
the door on his way out.

* * *

Mort and a red-haired woman sat at his dining
room table. Mort’s laptop was open and off to his right, facing
them. Counting the Skypers, there were five attending the meeting.
Brad would have made six, but he brooded in the corner by the
window. His back was to the group, his eyes once again on the
Henderson’s house across the street. Something kept drawing his
attention there. He hadn’t tried bringing up the radar and using
his danger sense for fear of what might happen. He didn’t want to
look like an ass by passing out in Mort’s dining room.

"I think the first thing we need to do is
make a list, write down every event we think is relevant, and then
find out as much about each one as we can. See if we can find a
common denominator," Mort explained.

"How far back should we start?" a voice asked
from the computer.

"Yeah, and what exactly is relevant?" asked
the woman sitting next to Mort. "What might seem important to me
might not to you. I think we need a set of parameters. Try not to
leave anything out just because we feel it’s not important."

"You’re right, Laura. Great idea." Mort
jotted down a few notes. "Hey, Bob? Can you hear me?"

"For the last time, it’s
Counselor
Troi
," answered the same Skyper from before.

"Christ’s sake," Mort mumbled. "I’m not
calling you that. For one, you’re not a woman."

"I just don’t feel comfortable with you using
my real name in your little book," said Bob. "Someone could do a
lot of damage with that thing. What if someone wanted to lock us
all up or something?"

"Bob, no one is going to try to—"

"Don’t use my real name! It’s Troi,
goddammit,
Troi
!"

"Okay, okay. Jesus." Mort wiped his forehead.
"To answer your question, Counselor Troi, I think we should at
least look back as far as when the precogs started having those
dreams." Mort looked at Izzy, the young girl whose pretty face
graced the upper left-hand corner of the screen. After Izzy voiced
her agreement, Mort nodded. "Alright. So when exactly did those
start?"

While Izzy explained the whens and wheres of
her specific dreams and visions, Brad focused harder on the house
across the street. He thought he’d seen something move in the
window. "Hey, Mort?" he asked.

Mort was too involved with the discussion to
pay him any mind. As a matter of fact, no one at the meeting had
paid him any attention the whole night.

Something moved again. This time Brad could
make out a silhouette. "Mort."

Still no answer. Brad could hear Izzy’s
fast-paced voice chattering from the computer; a good sign this
particular topic could go on all night. He turned and took a step
toward Mort. "Mort!"

Mort shot Brad a look. "What?"

"When was the last time you saw Mr.
Henderson?"

"How the hell would I know? Why?"

Brad shook his head. "Never mind. I’m going
across the street." He bowed to the table. "So sorry to interrupt.
Please… continue." Brad threw a two-fingered salute at the laptop.
"Izzy, catch ya next time."

"Hey, wait!" Mort tried to stop him but
wasn’t quick enough. Brad was gone before he could get his chair
scooted back.

Laura spoke up. "Leave him be." She glanced
at the window for a moment. She closed her eyes, rubbed the pad of
her index finger against her thumb, and pictured the street
outside. Then she expanded the image to include the houses next
door and across the way. She felt a part of herself leak out of her
body, just a tiny tendril that snaked away from her brain and
weaved toward the location of the picture she held in her mind. It
swayed back and forth, scanning and relaying images to her.
"There’s nothing out there." Laura stopped rubbing her two fingers
together and refocused on Mort. "He’ll be fine."

Mort grimaced, but he relented and retook his
seat. "Yeah, okay." He cleared his throat. "Where were we?
Izzy?"

"I’m here! I was saying mine started about a
year ago so we should probably start looking there for anything
that has to do with diseases or biological accidents or biological
warfare or chemical warfare or—"

"Whoa, girl. Breathe," Adams said. His box
was next to Izzy’s, and his eyes shifted to the left as though he
could see the Skyper on the screen next to him.

Mort considered muting the computer if only
to shut those two up. Izzy…well, her intentions were good, but she
had so much damned energy, and Adams was by far the most
distrustful and sarcastic man Mort had ever met.

"Quiet everyone." Mort rubbed his temples.
"Let’s just start digging. Look for everything related to what Izzy
mentioned, and throw in any notable events that stick out to you.
This isn’t our first trip around this block, so let’s act like it,
okay? You know what kind of weird shit to look for, so focus your
search within six months before and after the date Izzy gave us.
I’m pretty sure that’s when they started for Brad, too."

The group spent the next half hour hammering
out the parameters of their search. Before they adjourned, they’d
finally agreed on specific events to look for, including things
like viral outbreaks, weird and unexplained reports (the numerous
bouts of cannibalism threatened to sidetrack the group another half
hour), political or corporate interests in fields relating to
anything biological or medical, biological or chemical acts of
terrorism, and all forms of aggression by a government against its
people.

It was going to be a very long and complex
search.

* * *

A light snow had started to fall by the time
Brad found himself outside the Henderson’s front door. He’d watched
the living room window while crossing the street, but there had
been no movement since leaving Mort’s. He hesitated a moment before
knocking. It was too quiet. No TV, no lights, no anything coming
from inside. His fist rose and fell three times before he finally
summoned the courage to just do it already and get it over
with.

No answer.

I
was
seeing
things
and
no
one
is
home
.
Yeah
,
that’s
it
.
Might
as
well
go
back
.

Brad’s feet were about to hit sidewalk and
carry his ass back to Mort’s as fast as they could when the door
swung open.

"Can I help you?"

Brad spun around and almost tripped down the
steps. "Uh… well I…" He motioned around with his hand. "

"Young man, are you alright?"

In the doorway stood an older man, but it
wasn’t Mr. Henderson. He was tall, lanky, balding and gray, with a
thin mustache. Brad had seen this man before. He’d been wearing a
suit that time, and now he wore a bathrobe.

"You…I know you," Brad managed to spit out.
He didn’t know it, but he had back peddled halfway to the street,
caught between fear and a burning need to piss.

"You should come inside. Is there someone I
can call?" the older man asked. He held out a hand and was walking
across the porch.

Brad waved his hands in front of him. "No,
no, no, that’s okay. I’m fine. I just, uh…" His eyes darted around,
looking for an escape. He was almost to the street. "I just have
the wrong house is all. Terribly sorry to have bothered you."
Instead of crossing the road, he stayed on the sidewalk, turning to
head down the street. He wasn’t positive if this man had seen him
come from Mort’s, but if he hadn’t, then Brad might be able to pass
himself off as just some punk knocking on the wrong door.

"Wait—" the older man started. His jaw
clamped shut when he realized the younger fellow wasn’t interested
in sticking around. He watched until all he could make out was a
silhouette, then he went inside and shed his bathrobe. He pulled a
phone from his suit jacket and hit a button. "This location has
been compromised. Falling back to the rendezvous."

As the older man was hanging up and sneaking
out of the house by way of the back door, Brad was frantically
clawing at his pants pocket, trying to dig out his cell. He didn’t
let himself look back.

Brad dialed and Mort picked up mid-ring.
"Hel—"

"Get out of the house." Brad was panting,
walking in no particular direction, just away from the Henderson’s
and Mort’s.

"Wait, what? What are you talking about?
Where are you?"

"Don’t ask. Just get out, now. Go to my
apartment, but don’t drive straight over. Take some detours. Make
sure you’re not followed."

"Brad, tell me what’s wrong."

"I can’t. Gotta put as much distance as I can
between me and him. Just get your ass moving." Brad hung up and
stuffed the phone back in his pocket. "Holy shit." Brad tripped
over the curb and danced out into the intersection. Lucky for him
it was after dark and sort-of late. The streets rolled up there
around nine every night. He speed-walked and brought up his radar,
blinking so fast he could barely see. No blips at all. "Holy
shit."

How could his danger radar not be registering
anything?