The Everborn (51 page)

“Bari,” Ralston acknowledged her welcomingly. “And in such a timely manner, too. I was just talking about you. But you know that, don’t you. Hello.”

“Yes, I know about as much as you
think
I do,” Bari replied. “But you don’t know everything, and neither do I. Still, I know more than you, even with your experiences with those vagabond Watchers, even with as much as you’ve read of this book of yours that has yet to be written and that’s responsible for both the good and the bad in all this. Salvatia and Andrew’s Dreg twin brother are holding Melony in anticipation of our eminent rescue attempt. That much is clear, seeing how their ambush didn’t turn out to be
here
, at your residence. It is in this respect that you must have acquired better insight than I, for
you
have read this book whereas my ‘Born and I haven’t. So....tell us, before you ramble further about revealing sweet nothings to Andrew....where do you believe they’re holding Melony? Umm, so we could get on with it?”

“All right,” Ralston said, submitting to a moment of consternation, “so be it. Mind you, there’s no immediate rush. Salvatia will not lift a finger until we make that journey and go for her bait. Now, let’s see...

“...I haven’t had a good meal in a long, long time. You don’t eat as much, if you find yourself becoming a creature like me throughout the course of a couple months when you’ve spent a lifetime convinced you’re
human
. I’m
starving
, come to think of it. I know a certain diner in Carbon Canyon that just might suit
all our needs....”

44.

Carbon Canyon

A congress of stars came forth through recessions of the Halloween Witching Hour’s cloudy sky, or what remained of it, bestowing Carbon Canyon with its first glimpse of the heavens of a new November. The parting clouds had drifted on opposing currents of wind from every direction as far as each horizon to gather here, rendering the neighboring regions cloudless with only the local weatherman paying any mind. At the height of the spectacle, they encompassed the view above with all the thickness of the inner cotton-white lining of a thermal jacket. Either by coincidence or by a higher power’s predestined omen, the cue for their dispersal came no sooner than when Andrew Erlandson and Ralston Cooper set foot on rocky ground as they vacated their cab.

As the cabby dismissed them, pulled back down the narrow highway and into the deep dark, his f.m. stereo’s
Talkradio Newswatch
host remarked about the climate in a relieved sigh over the diminished chances of rain. The cabby wasn’t listening, preoccupied as he was by the confounding uselessness of his high beams against the obscure road ahead; he was at the same time spellbound by his inability to remember where he was, or who it was that brought him here, or to radio in for assistance...

...it was going to be quite a perilous while before the sun would rise and allow the poor soul assurance of his bearings and of a way out....

***

Ralston knew exactly where he was, though in this life he knew just as well that he’d never been here before. He knew how it would come to be that Max Polito would be drawn here to inevitably meet him and assist him in writing the very book that he
already read
.

Andrew, on the other hand, had no clue: “What
is
this place?”

“It’s a place I had read about,” he answered. “A place where we need to be now. It’s not a bad place. Just a
forgotten
place, and the Watchers I’ve encountered took care to avoid any discussion I’d try to create concerning it.”

“How’d you know how to get here?”

“
Bari
knew.”

“You really believe Salvatia’s waiting for us here?”

“Without a doubt,” replied Ralston. Then, “Well, with little doubt. I’m almost absolutely sure. You ready for it, Andy-man?”

Andrew was never, ever, precisely,
ready for it
.

Andrew remained garbed in his black costumed disguise, so be it if the globule-eyed grey alien semblance from above the shoulders was genuine. It was genuine, as was Ralston’s; together they resembled an air-brushed portrait from some contemporary expressionist flaunting commercial new-age t-shirt art. Ralston, rolled-up jeans and sweatshirt and black trenchcoat jaggedly cut with scissors at the hem line of a five-year-old, felt himself the more hip of the duo...and in his wizened stature, at least he stood a hip inch-and--a-half taller than Andrew. This was still less than five feet.

Andrew’s persuasions toward Ralston teetered from trust to distrust and then back to trust since their departure from the Brea home and through to this very moment. During this period, the course of the ride, they’d shared little conversation. For one thing, given the nonhuman obviousness of their appearance, they did not want to be too animated for the driver, which might’ve upset the bewitched man further. The virtual silence was an opportune time for Andrew to mentally absorb everything.

All that Ralston was and all he had told him in the upstairs bedroom was true, to the greater extent, which was self-evident. The exception to this was the bit about the Watchers nabbing this now-infamous manuscript from Ralston’s hands, giving him just enough time to read up to recent events, but no time to read further. Andrew could wring those words out like a rag soaked wet with lame excuses. In this life, he’d never been able to fully trust Ralston, and any skepticism on Andrew’s part was to Andrew a reaction glittering in merit.

Nevertheless, Ralston, in this present state, was far more trustworthy than he ever was. What Ralston was a part of, Andrew was a part of. Bari was a part of it. Melony and her husband were a part of it. In the big picture...hell,
everything
, the
whole damn world,
might as well be a part of it.

Bari, who’d made herself as unseen as the molecules in the air throughout the ride, was no longer with them.

The two exchanged blank glances, then, gazed soberly upon the lone diner before them.

***

They proceeded along the diner’s car-less gravel lot welcome-mat. Obscurity christened the rooftop and what was apparently a dormant generic neon sign. The windowed front highlighted a patron here and there, in corrals of booths or nestled upon bar stools at the counter intercepting the front register.

A rectangular wooden sign stained to a deep brown oak dangled in the mellow breeze from links of chains. Displayed upon it in antique fashion was a burnt engraving of three words in quotations:

“
We’re never
close.”

Not far from it, a window posterboard heralded a cursive-penned message:

MIDNIGHT MEAL SPECIAL:

All-you-can-eat

deep-fried

pawns.

(see inside for details)

“Don’t they mean
prawns?”
Andrew commented.

“Hold it a second,” Ralston said, stricken to a halt by his own senses suddenly, and Andrew halted with him.

“What is it?”

“Be prepared for
anything,”
Ralston instructed, eyes scanning the area. He then proceeded forward.

“Wait,” Andrew said, and Ralston halted again, turned, looked at him. “What’s wrong with this picture? We’re not about to just waltz into a public place, are we? I mean, the cab driver we could handle, but...there’s
people
in there, and well...look at
us!"

“Tell you what,” said Ralston. “I propose we step in to this fine establishment, ignorant to all of that and pretending we haven’t a clue as to how plainly
exotic
we appear.”

“Let’s say they freak out, as they all should. Wouldn’t we, normally?”

“What do you mean, we? You’ve been exposed to
Bari
all your life. You mean, and what the rest of us call, humanity. But if they freak out, that’s quite all right, because that
would
be a normal reaction. We’ll get the hell out and away from here and retreat to some quiet place where we can rethink our strategy. But if they react in a way short of this, that’ll be our cue that shit
ain’t
right, and we’ll know this trip wasn’t a waste of time.”

“Agreed.”

They entered the diner.

45.

The Diner Untold

The inside of the diner at first proved to be even less of a thrill than it was looking at it from the outside. Andrew and Ralston were greeted by yet another sign, a freestanding sign of cheap plastic with a metal base. It was the kind of “
please wait to be seated
” sign one would expect, except all it read was
WAIT
in bold lettering.

And so they waited for a short while at the sign. The wait gave them time enough to inspect the drab surroundings. It could have been perceived as odd or otherwise indifferent that a waitress did not eventually pop into sight to greet them, but there
were
no waitresses at
all
. In fact, noticeably, there were no
employees
that either one of them could see; none, either behind the front counter nor in what they could view of the kitchen.

A basket of fries awaited pick-up at a vacant chef’s station.

A curious couple each clad in thermal jackets so oversized they could have been mistaken for sleeping bags occupied the two far right corner bar stools, silently grubbing on finger foods.

A gentleman, elderly and frail and adorned in muscular twitches sat in a booth aligned against the front stretch of window glass to Ralston’s right; his frizzy hair was parted across the top of his head to a vacuous baldness in a Larry-of-
The-Three-Stooges
kind of way. Opposite him at his table, the bobbing of a matted gray head of hair revealed he had company.

To the left of the front counter register and seated atop a barstool was another elderly chap, garbed in the worn denim of Dickie coveralls and nothing but bare skin beneath. His scrawny, barefooted hillbilly self was undistracted from the cracker island he erected upon the green waters of his split pea soup.

The other side of the diner’s interior was just as uneventful and lifeless; to the rearward left,at the last window seat of the last booth, a nest-like mound of dark auburn hair crowned a face buried in cradled arms slumped over the table.

Six people as inert as the outside night itself, yet given the outside night and the area beyond, this was the most happening place around. Accompanying all this was the barely audible, subtle,
soothing
sounds of “
Do You Know the Way To San José,”
ala elevator music, via speakers resembling shower drains dispersed every yard or so across the ceiling.

“Ralston,” Andrew said in a whisper, “what do we do?”

“We stay
together,”
Ralston answered. “It’s likely they’ll want us separated.”

“You think they’re here?”

Ralston’s eyes squinted, eyelids blinked like the flicking of pale white camera shutters over two glistening black lenses. He spied a pack of menthol longs upon the polished counter in clear view beside the denim Dickies man’s split pea soup.

For one thing, Ralston figured, it would be nice to partake in a little nicotine rush. For
another
thing....

“Wait here,” Ralston said next. “I think I’ll test the waters a bit.”

“Good luck,” was the only reply at Andrew’s disposal and he chose to wait for him. Ralston wasn’t about to stray too far and wasn’t about to leave his sight, and none of the six patrons had given them notice yet anyway.

Just like Ralston, too, to want to be the first to
instigate
attention.

“Excuse me, friend,” Ralston straightened himself gentlemanly and groped for a tug at the Dickies man’s denim, “you don’t suppose I can bum a smoke from you....?”

“You ain’t my goddamn wife,” the Dickies man muttered nonchalantly, undistracted from his saltine crackers. “So go ‘head, young tadpole-man, help yerself.”

Tadpole-man???

“Uh...don’t mind if I do. Thanks.” Ralston sidestepped the barstool at one side of the man and snagged the pack of smokes from the counter, picked a single from the pack, perched the cigarette’s butt between what slits remained of his lips, and returned the pack to its place. His eyes never withdrew from the man and the man’s eyes never withdrew from his soup.

Ralston nagged at him again. “Hey, sorry. Umm, you got a light? I seem to have misplaced mine on my intergalactic star cruiser....”

“Ain’t got one,” the man replied, unflinching. Then, the denim man’s right arm lifted, exposing an underarm pit infested with carefully braided hairs. All of his fingers curled fist-like but the index, which pointed as he spoke again. “But
they
do.
They
have a light for ya.
Those
ones, the ones on the
other side….”

Ralston turned his gaze into the direction where he indicated, the direction of the thermal jacketed couple at the counter’s opposite end.

It was as though the couple sensed they’d become the objects of attention, for as soon as the attention was drawn to them they simultaneously returned Ralston’s gaze.

Ralston immediately recognized the couple, and the very reality of who they were drew him towards them in hopeless abandon, utterly awed, and it wasn’t because the couple might’ve held between them a light for his smoke that he lost a grip on reality himself.

It was because the red thermal jacket contained his prodigal girlfriend, Jessica as she reared her head to teeter Ralston’s way, and the wearer of the lavender blue thermal jacket at the hind side of her raised a muted expression belonging to none other than his literary agent William Behn.