Restoration (17 page)

  The stranger patted him on his back, leaving a red hand print that would glare at Hughie a couple of hours later when he caught sight of it in the bathroom mirror. "Of course I could have managed," he said, "but I wanted you to do it."

  "Holding up your bottle in the light of the sun."

  The stranger laughed at that. "You've got it Hughie, you've got it."

  They walked back towards the house. Now Hughie had started asking the questions he figured he might as well go for broke and ask the one that hung in his mind most often. "You going to kill me?"

  The stranger shrugged. "Maybe, I doubt it though… can't see the fun in it."

  "Why do you keep me around then?"

  "Because sometimes things only mean something when you have an audience," the stranger admitted. "That and the fact that you're useful as a resource. You taught me all you know!"

  There was one question left and Hughie couldn't leave it hanging there: "What are you going to do?"

  "What, now? Watch TV for a bit probably… I like TV."

  "No, you know what I mean, what are you going to do in the end? What's your plan?"

  The stranger took a deep breath, enjoying the feel of it in the silly meat and gristle of his chest. "To be honest Hughie I just don't know, I guess the only honest answer is: whatever I like."

 

 

The stranger was being as truthful as ever. When he had left his prison he had always imagined he would just go back to his old lifestyle, wallow in the flesh of these creatures and play for a while – that kid with the bottle that he had alluded to – but the more he thought about it the more he guessed that wouldn't be the case. It wasn't boredom, though that would come soon enough, it always had. It was just an itch… a leaning towards something bigger. There was an element of fear there, an emotion that was still incredibly new to him, a feeling only just learned, knocked into him when his own kind had come back to this reality and put him in his place. Would they return? Would they know that he had slipped out of their cage and was on the loose? Would they even care? He didn't know. But he feared the answers just the same. He had an idea that the next time they came calling they may not settle for imprisonment. They didn't have his patience, his love of games. No, he thought they'd likely just wipe him out of existence entirely, a tiresome little aberration that was too much trouble for his own good.

  So what to do?

  Home Town intrigued him. Intrigued him because it was a mystery and there had been precious few of those in his existence. It was a place layered in coincidence. It was where he was supposed to abandon Chester – and he would, in his own good time, he had an idea that he might have a game or two to offer Chester yet. It was also where the kid would grow up and set his hands on the box again. A coincidence. The stranger didn't believe in coincidences. He believed in patterns. Was this a pattern? Barely… with only two events linked to it… but maybe… He would go take a look, get a feel for the place himself. Then he would see how he felt. Then he would begin to make plans.

 

 

Hughie had mopped the floor of his kitchen where the stranger had carried out his interrogation. No, not an interrogation, the stranger didn't need to get his hands dirty for that, could pull all he needed to know straight out of a man's head. This had been a game, that was all. He had called himself a kid with a bottle, burning the ants beneath him for fun. Hughie thought he was the kid that took his toys apart to see how they worked too, just for the hell of seeing something stripped bare.

  It had been a thankless job, the torn and curling linoleum clinging to every blood splatter however hard Hughie beat at it with the old mop. He had started off with hot water and then finished the job with cold, the hot water tank unable to keep up with his demands. By the time he'd finished it wasn't perfect but it was better. Sometimes better just had to be enough.

  Hughie went to bed on his bare mattress. He wasn't in the least bit tired but he wanted to get away from the stranger sat in his easy chair watching CSI reruns. As he lay there, he thought back to that long night lying out at the head of the dirt track. Covered in those rattling Diamondbacks waiting for dawn. Part of him was beginning to realise his situation was no different now. The Diamondback was sat downstairs, laughing at the CSI team as they plodded their way towards truth via splatter reports and dust fibre analysis. Hughie wondered when it was going to turn around and bite.

  The following morning, Hughie thought for a moment that the time had come. The snake in his house was grinning and his teeth glistened with the potential to chew and maim.

  "We're going for a drive," the stranger said. "Get the car started."

 

 

They needed a car, and Tom had got directions from the reception desk to a Hertz place nearby. As he was paying for it with Loomis' stolen card he suddenly realised that had been a mistake. Surely the man would have reported the card lost by now? The transaction sailed through and Tom took the card back in surprise.

  "Is everything alright sir?" the clerk asked, noticing the look on his face. Don't knock it, Tom thought, if the guy has so much money he forgets to cancel his cards then that's his problem.

  "Great," he said, returning her smile and dropping the keys into his jacket pocket.

  Back outside, Carruthers was gazing up at the buildings like he had been doing all morning.

  "You look like a tourist," Tom noted.

  "In many ways that's just what I am," Carruthers admitted, "what I've always been, in fact."

  "Glad somebody's enjoying this," Tom replied, leading them to their car – a cheap compact, Tom hadn't had the enthusiasm for decadence this morning. "I'll drive," he said (much to Miles' relief… the last time he'd been behind the wheel of something he'd crashed it).

  Carruthers climbed in the back, his enthusiasm for the ride ahead finally outweighing what was left of his hangover. "I hope we get to stay on the road a little longer than last time," he said, tying the seatbelt around his waist. As much as I hate to admit it, these infernal devices are more exciting than I had previously given them credit for."

  "Exciting?" asked Tom, lighting a cigarette off the dashboard lighter, "my reputation precedes me…"

  He stamped on the gas and the car jerked onto the road, forcing Miles to thrash back and forth in his seat.

  "You must really want to see my breakfast again," he complained, fixing his seatbelt in place before noticing that Tom hadn't bothered with his. "Buckle up?" he asked.

  "Nah…" Tom replied. "Those things rumple your clothes."

  "Says the giant rumple in a hat," joked Miles.

  Tom grinned and headed towards the interstate.

 

 

"So," said Hughie, as he pulled off I-4 and onto Highway 192, "what's the interest in this place?"

  The stranger shrugged. "I'm not entirely sure as yet," he admitted. "Just an itch… half a suspicion."

  "Didn't think you seemed the type to move into real estate," Hughie admitted.

  "You'd be surprised," said the stranger with a smile. "I'd like to own all of this one day."

  Hughie didn't reply to that, he sensed it to be true and the idea chilled him.

  "Some places just have a charge to them, Hughie," the stranger continued, "a quality that makes them stand apart."

  "Feel that way about Hooters."

  The stranger took a moment to understand that, flipping through Hughie's mind until he hit on images of waitresses in orange hot pants. "My, Hughie but you're positively chipper today!"

  "No, just fatalistic." And this was true, hitting his third day – and still not dead – in this creature's company he found a certain apathy had kicked in. He imagined convicts on Death Row felt similar. His chances of long-term survival were pretty remote but he was damned if he was going to quiver in fear over it.

  The construction site was soon visible, the yellow cranes rising and falling, the backhoes and front-loaders scrabbled around in the dirt picking up the scraps.

  "What an industrious little species you are," the stranger said, as they pulled in, clapping his hands together with enthusiasm.

  The site's foreman was a man that Loomis had never quite known how to handle. Corben Alliss who wore his clichés with a confidence that was staggering. He strode back and forth amongst the excavations in skin-tight jeans and boots so big he looked like a cartoon character from the waist down. His hard hat was carefully placed over a DA so extensively greased that you could have fried his head in minutes given a large enough skillet. You'd have had to take the rhinestone sunglasses off though, they were so heavy they'd likely have snapped that skillet in two. From the neck up Corben Alliss thought he was Elvis. From the waist down he looked like Dudley Do Right. If it wasn't for the fact that he looked like Charles Atlas in the middle he'd have heard a lot of jibes during his working day. As it was, his strength and more, his willingness to use it – Alliss was only too happy to let rip with the slightest provocation – saved him from a lot of slurs or chuckles. To Loomis, a man who spent most of his time obsessing about how he appeared to others, the foreman was an utter enigma.

  To the stranger he was simply a creature of passing interest.

  "Help you?" Alliss asked as Hughie parked the Olds and the stranger got out.

  "Doubt that," the stranger said, walking straight past him.

  Alliss looked at Hughie and the car he was getting out from the behind the wheel of. "That Loomis' car?" he asked. Knowing damn well it was.

  "That's right," said Hughie, wondering what solid and believable reason he could give for driving it.

  "Yeah," said the stranger, "I took that little shit apart and stole his ride." He turned and smiled over his shoulder. "That sound about right, Hughie?"

  Hughie made a blustering noise, utterly at a loss to what he was supposed to say to that. Alliss fixed him in a stare from behind his ludicrous sunglasses. All Hughie could see was his own nervous face looking right back at him.

  "Funny guy, huh?" Alliss said eventually.

  "Hilarious," said the stranger, walking back over to him. He reached out and nudged those rhinestones down with a delicate finger so he could look directly in Alliss' eyes. For a moment Hughie thought the foreman would reach out and start a fight. He gritted his teeth, waiting for the violence – not for one minute worried about the stranger, he knew who the victor would be if this came to blows. It didn't. Alliss looked at the little man and found he had no urge to fight. If any of his staff had seen this they would have been at a loss to explain it. Alliss took one look into the stranger's eyes and found the only urge left in him was to knock off early, drive home, lock the door and hide there until he could be absolutely sure this man wouldn't be there when he stepped out again.

  The stranger smiled and carried on walking towards the diggers. For a moment Alliss nearly called after him, warning him to wear a hard hat if he was going to wander around. Then he decided there wasn't a thing that could touch this weird little man and kept his mouth shut. He looked at Hughie, those glasses of his still dropped onto his cheeks, then ran off to far side of the site and his office. He would stay there until the police came a couple of hours later, utterly unable to explain the atrocities that had occurred in the meantime.

 

 

Tom wasn't a frequent driver. Usually he was too blind drunk to be capable. Walking was frequently hard and he'd been practicing that every day of his life. Nonetheless he managed to keep the car on the road and not smack into any other vehicles. He considered this a solid gold achievement as he pulled off the Interstate and onto the highway.

  "So many cars," Carruthers commented. "Do you people ever get to where you're going or do you just drive around all day?"

  "Americans do love their cars," Tom admitted. "Personally as getting drunk in them tends to be frowned upon I've never seen the appeal."

  "Nor do many come fitted with pianos," Miles added.

  "This is true."

  Seeing the cranes ahead, Tom swung the car off the road just a little short of the site entrance. "If we want Loomis to still think of us as rich weirdoes we'd better leave the car back a bit," he suggested. "It doesn't scream wealth."

  "Unbelievable," said Carruthers as he clambered out of the back, "you have metal boxes that ferry you around at the most miraculous speeds and yet you can be embarrassed by them?"

  They walked the last stretch alongside the road, turning into the site entrance alongside Loomis' Olds. Hughie was sat in the driver's seat, very much tempted to rev the thing up and drive like hell. The sure and certain knowledge that he wouldn't get half a mile before the stranger forced him to run the car off the road – or worse, into the path of another car – was the only thing that stopped him. Leave or stay, he certainly had no intention of seeing what the stranger got up to. The man had a spring in his step this morning and Hughie knew that could only mean some bad shit was going down sooner or later. He saw the three men walk past him but spared them no attention. They were beneath his radar. After they had passed a thought flashed through his head… he really should have warned them not to go in. Not that they would have likely listened.

 

 

Miles, Carruthers and Tom had no real idea what they were looking for, they were just following the impossible leads of coincidence and going where the House told them. By rights that should have meant they were prepared for pretty much anything. They weren't.