The Unnoticeables (16 page)

I cracked my neck and exhaled some of the tension.

“Thank you. That was a very nice story,” I told him with all the forced politeness I could manage.

Carey was quiet for a minute, then broke into a big smile.

“Good!” he said, “That's the smart way to go. You might make it after all.”

He chugged the rest of his whiskey—my eyes watered a little just imagining it—and stood to leave.

“Never mind me,” he continued. “I sniffed too much glue in grade school, that's all. Just the mutterings of a weird old wino.”

Carey moved unsteadily toward the front door, and I could feel stress sloughing off of me like dead skin.

That clinches it: I've gone crazy again. Just like after Stacy died. None of what I thought was happening over the last few days was real. I might actually be stalking a B-list celebrity and blacking it out, and now I just need to see a doctor. They have pills for everything. I remember the pills. I'll take a little blue oval twice a day with meals, and this time next year—

“Just let me leave you with two warnings,” Carey said, pausing at the threshold.

“Shoot,” I said, positively giddy.

Say whatever you like! We're all crazies here.

“First, if you meet somebody whose face you can't remember—even when you're looking right at 'em—don't trust them.”

The room swam around me. I felt like I was standing at the edge of a giant hole, leaning over and spitting down into the dark. A cold wind blew up over the lip. Goose bumps tracked across my legs and arms.

“And two, if you ever see a strange light, brighter than anything should be, making a sound like screaming and singing all at once—if you ever see something that looks like an angel, you run like hell and don't stop until your legs give out. And you never, ever, ever let it touch you. No matter what you think it's gonna do, no matter what's at stake, do not touch the damned thing.”

He turned to weave away into the warm, oceanic Los Angeles night.

My lips wouldn't move. My tongue was dead weight. My lungs would not draw air.

The edge of the hole slid away beneath me. I tumbled into the void.

“W-wait.” It took all of my energy to force the sound out.

Carey turned back to face me. He looked happy and buzzed.

“I've seen them already,” I said. “I've seen the angels.”

I think I broke his heart just then.

*   *   *

“So they got your sister?” Carey was rummaging around my kitchen looking for more booze.

So far he'd found a swig of ancient tequila hidden in a dusty bottle in a forgotten corner atop my fridge; a Hefeweizen I'd been planning to cook a chicken with, back when I was foolish enough to believe I'd ever learn to cook; and an unopened bottle of blackberry-flavored vodka. He shuddered when he read the label, then opened it and poured the entire thing down the drain while glaring at me.

Carey sat down at the dining room table and carefully nursed the Hefeweizen like a man stranded on a life raft in the middle of the ocean.

“I don't know,” I answered. “The cops—they said she might have run away from the fire. But that didn't seem too likely. They didn't find a body or anything, and she never turned up again. They brought my parents in, even. Police thought they had something to do with it at first. But nothing came of the investigation. It's weird. That night should be such an important part of my life, and it's just not there. When I do remember parts of it, they're so vivid it aches—but it's only a second here and there. Part of a song my mother sang while doing the dishes. Stacy messing with her yo-yo. Playing cars in front of the TV in the living room. And something bright, over my bed at night. Stacy said the word, not me: She said ‘angel.' Then the fire. Then…”

I spread my hands and shrugged my shoulders.

Carey pulled at his beer and swished it around his mouth for a while before reluctantly swallowing.

“So what does it mean? What are they? What do they want with my family?”

“No fucking clue.”

“Wait—what the hell? You just said—”

“I just said if you see one, run. I've tangled with 'em before, and all I know is exactly what I told you: The angels do something to people. They ‘solve' them—that's the word the Empty Ones use. When it happens, most people are just gone, but some don't go away completely. They split in two. They don't solve right, I guess. They leave behind remainders. Things like Marco and the tar men. I know if you let the tar men get a hold of you, you turn into a meat milk shake. I know if you let Marco get inside of you, he turns you into something like him. But a shittier version. Those people you can't remember, even when you're looking at them? That's what they are. That's what you would've been if I hadn't pulled you out of his car a few nights ago. A faceless thing, following Marco around like a puppy. ‘Unnoticeables,' we used to call them. And I know that Marco and the things Marco makes—they serve or worship or maybe just give dainty little hand jobs to these angels. What they do and why they do it is your guess, because that's as far as I've gotten, and I've been at this for decades. For some reason, it's hard to get a straight answer out of a half-solved psychopathic angel-worshiping machine cultist. Go figure.”

“What do they do with the ones they take? Is Jackie even … is she alive?”

A bundle of nerves pulsed up my neck. My vision blurred and I blinked back the tears.

“Maybe,” Carey said.

He didn't seem to plan on elaborating, but then he saw my face and added: “It's hard to tell. They do awful shit to the people they take sometimes. But not all the time. I've gone in after friends and found a pile of bloody pulp being fucked by a coven of monsters. Then I've gone in after friends and found them happily dazed in the middle of an empty subway station. I don't know what the rhyme or reason is to it. I don't have anything more for you.”

Carey contemplated his beer for a second, then chugged the rest and set the bottle down hard.

“I wish you had more for
me,
though. Tell you what: I'm gonna return those cans and do a beer run to the Seven-Eleven across the street, and when I get back we'll come up with a game plan to rescue your friend. Fair warning, though: most of my game plans are ‘light something on fire and throw it at somebody that looks like they know something.' If you want brains in this operation, you'll have to bring them.”

I laughed, and locked the door behind him. I walked down the narrow hallway toward the bathroom, my head lost in daydreams of busting into giant machine temples and rescuing Jackie from angry, faceless natives.

Ha-ha, why natives? TV has ruined me.

I dropped my jeans to the floor and settled against the cold porcelain, forcing the ridiculous fantasies away.

Where do you start looking for a missing person? What would the cops do, if they were helping?

I'd barely started peeing—just a few hasty drops splashed into the water below—when I heard a metallic squeak and felt a hot blast of steam.

The shower.

How did it—?

A man's voice, deep and resonant.

“Getting to knooooow yoooou,” it sang. The voice was only separated from me by a ten-dollar shower curtain I'd bought on sale at Target. It was six inches away from my bare knees.

“Getting to know all aboooouuut you.”

Marco.

Every muscle in my legs seized at once. It physically hurt to move them, they were so tense. I slowly, quietly, achingly pulled my jeans up just enough to stand, and started reaching for the doorknob. I heard the sliding
clack
of the shower curtain being pulled open. A rush of warmth.

“You can join me,” Marco said, his voice casual and friendly. “I don't mind.”

I lunged for the knob and yanked it, but there wasn't enough room. The bathroom was so small, and the door opened inward. I had to lean toward the shower to get it open, and as soon as I did, a strong hand wrapped about my naked waist and started pulling me into the stall.

I thrashed, at first just trying to get my bare ass pointed away from Marco, then trying to scramble out of his grasp, then trying to keep my legs out of the impossibly hot spray. I felt it burning me all over, but Marco's skin—and I could see now he was completely nude—wasn't even red. He smiled impassively as I punched and clawed at his face. He didn't even blink when I put a fingernail into his eyeball. His smile didn't falter when I busted my knuckles against his perfectly white teeth. He held me immobile, both hands on my hips, as burning water broke against the back of his neck and scalded my limbs.

Marco started marching us one awkward half step at a time toward the open bathroom window. He repositioned his hands to hoist me toward the opening, and I took the opportunity to twist out of his grip. I kicked off of the toilet and knocked my head painfully against the partially open door. Marco, still smiling, blood streaming down his face from his ruined eye, bent to reach for me. I kicked his knee out, and his bare feet slid on the wet tile. He went down bad. Sideways, and without even trying to catch himself. His neck nearly broke in half when it hit the sink.

Marco lay still. He was a tangled heap of grotesquely twisted limbs on my bathroom floor.

I allowed myself one steadying breath, then yanked my pants up and crawled out the door.

I only made it a few feet into the hallway when something caught my leg. I tried to shake it free, but no luck. I looked back and saw one twisted, tanned hand clutching the hem of my jeans.

Then it started to pull.

I finally thought to scream. My voice was hoarse and ragged. It left me completely when Marco's head peeked around the door, upside down and swiveling loosely on a neck like a boiled noodle.

He smiled at me. That pool-party-poster smile. That smile from my teenage-girl bedroom. And he said, without a hint of pain or discomfort:

“Where you goin',
chica
? We're just getting started!”

I kicked the wall. I kicked the floor. I kicked his hand. I kicked the door, over and over. I thrashed and flailed in a seizure of uncontrollable, primal fear. I did not want to go through that door. I did not want to see the inside of that bathroom. That nightmare of broken limbs. That smiling, inverted face, laughing at me. I kicked again and again and—almost too late, it occurred to me.

I bucked and wriggled backward out of my jeans. They snapped instantly around the bathroom door and out of sight. I crawled backward the first few feet down the hall, then stood and ran. I threw back the deadbolt, yanked open the front door, and sprinted straight out of my apartment and directly into Carey.

He pivoted instantly. His reflexes were strangely quick for a man who looked so broken and worn. I thought he was moving to catch me, but he ducked away at the last second, and I scraped my knees bloody on the driveway. I looked up and found him protectively cradling a twelve-pack of Pabst like a mother with a newborn babe.

Carey blinked in confusion, then helped me up.

“Sorry,” he said, nodding at the beer. “Instincts.”

“Marco,” I said, and my voice cracked. “Bathroom.”

Carey gently set the twelve-pack down and bolted for the hallway.

It was a full two seconds before the adrenaline turned on me. Before I kicked over from survivalist flight mode to suicidal fight mode. A huge part of my brain screamed at my stupidity. It offered a thousand other, better alternatives, but I was too far gone by that point to listen to reason. I ran back inside, grabbed my Cobra from the table, and arrived at the bathroom just in time to see Marco scramble up the wall sideways, like a crab, his shattered neck and wobbling face still smirking at nothing in particular. He disappeared through the window and was gone.

A half second later, his hand poked back into view and gave us a jaunty wave, then vanished again.

Carey and I were stunned silent for a long moment.

“Well, that was pretty fucked up,” Carey finally said.

It broke the spell. I swiveled about in the cramped hallway, facing my bedroom. I grabbed at the pile of unsorted clothes that always seems to collect at the foot of my bed, and skipped and hopped myself into a pair of black slacks as I ran toward the front door. I emerged onto the street just in time to see Marco's Mercedes fishtail out of the alley and onto Pico Boulevard.

“Fuck!” I screamed, and slapped the wall. “How are we going to catch him now?!”

“Catch…?” Carey turned to me, astonished. Then he smiled so wide I think he split his lip open. “You want to catch him?”

“He knows where Jackie is!” I shocked my Cobra against the sidewalk and collapsed it down into its handle, then tucked it into my waistband.

“I love you,” Carey said. Then, more usefully, he added: “I have a motorcycle.”

 

FOURTEEN

Unnamed. Unknown.

I see a man on television, a politician on some local access channel, and I know just by looking at him that he is secretly homosexual and ashamed of it. This is the root cause for much of his behavior: his enjoyment of anal sex and the subsequent shame. It has been the inspiration for a few one-night stands, more than a handful of crying fits, various acts of contrition, several attempts to cover up the indiscretions; all told, he has spent 36,902 hours of his life pursuing various activities and modes of thought that were a direct reaction to his unwillingness to acknowledge his enjoyment of anal sex.

The politician is a living being. He requires energy to function. Those hours he spent actively denying a part of himself were all fueled by calories: enough calories to feed the nation of Namibia for a day; enough caloric energy to augment the magnetic field of Mars for sixteen crucial seconds, thus diverting an asteroid that would otherwise turn a small mountain into a crater. That small mountain endured for 64.3 million years. For the next 23 years, 7 months, 6 days, 4 hours, and 35 seconds, this politician can continue chastising himself for finding pleasure where he does—or I can reach in there and simplify all the decisions influenced by this one petty sexual need, and use that same energy to save part of cosmic history.