The Very Last Days of Mr Grey (17 page)

“My face,” he said sternly.

“I’m not judging.”

“Yes you are.”

“It’s good that you’re tired, doors await.”

“Oh now it’s good.” Mason threw up his hands then let them slap down on his thighs. “What happened to ‘You can’t sleep normally’?”

“I never said that.”

“You—”

“I said what needed to be said for you to do what needed to be done.”

“I don’t like you.”

She went to his kitchen.
His
kitchen. Got out his glass, filled it with water (he wasn’t sure of the ownership there) from his faucet, then opened his cabinet and took out his medicine before taking it to him sitting on his couch. She looked at his face. “You’re blushing. Or flushed.”

“What is that?”

“Here.”

“I’m not taking any more of that.”

“You’re taking all of it.”

“What?”

“If it doesn’t work…” she looked away, at the rug.

“Don’t leave me hanging.”

“There’s nothing else after this. This is as far as I go. It’s as far as I know. Past this, I’m at a loss. I have no more ideas.”

“Don’t you have some trick up your sleeve? You had a gun.”

“I’ve always had the gun. And all my tricks are done.”

“Are you quoting someone?”

“Myself, in another life.”

Mason took the drug. She was seriously beginning to bum him out. It wasn’t that he thought the drug would make him feel better—he knew from experience it wouldn’t. He just wanted her to stop being so sad. It was making him depressed. That wouldn’t do.

“Gah,” Mason gagged as he dumped it in his mouth. He downed the entire glass of water, spilling some—okay, lots—out the sides of his mouth. “Agh,” he stuck his tongue out, “it tastes like… bitter nothing.” He gagged. “I don’t remember it being so vile.”

“Void for void.”

“Huh?”

She took his glass and the empty metal pill bottle from him and took them to the kitchen.

“Whoa,” Mason said, leaning back. “I feel weird.”

Then he passed out.

“I, CAN’T, BELIEVE, YOU, DRUGGED ME, AGAIN!”

“JESUS, CALM, DOWN!”

“I AM CALM!”

“NO, YOU’RE SCREAMING REALLY LOUD.”

“Oh.” Mason breathed in and out once. He continued this, but without so much attention to it. “I can’t believe—”

“That I drugged you, yes I know. I had to. And you saw a door, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, Ms Psychic. I already told you I did.”

“But it’s not here.”

“Are you just going to keep repeating the things I’ve already told you?”

“You mean how you saw it in a circle of stones, and how it was that place we were just at, where those men took you, and where you had been when you were with that girl?”

Mason stared at her. “Pretty much that.”

She stared back. “Okay.”

“What kind of answer is that?”

“Would you prefer no?”

Mason thought about this, decided he would. “Yes, actually.”

“No.”

“Wait, I’m confused. No what?”

“No to your no.”

“…”

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“I’m too high to hate you.”

“You’re not high.”

“No. Just happy.” He frowned at himself for admitting this. He quickly went on. “So what you’re saying is no to my no which means yes to your okay and that we will thus be heading up the mountain again to the spot where the incident occurred.”

She stared at him for a long moment. “Are you mocking me?”

“I don’t know, am I?”

She slapped him.

“Hey! What the fuck?”

“Your eyes were closing, I didn’t want you dozing off.”

“There were not! They were locked on yours.”

She got up, shaking her head. “There? Now you’re slurring your words. You mean they. They were not.” Her head was still shaking. “See, that’s why you shouldn’t have taken so much.”

“WHAT! You gave it to me!”

“Did I ever say to take the whole thing?”

“Yes!”

“Did I?” She put a hand to her face.

“Yes! Yes and yes!”

She shook her head. “No. Come on, I’ll drive.”

Upon standing up from his couch, with Sera’s assistance, blood shifted in his body and his assessment that he hadn’t been high now seemed less correct. By the time they got outside, he was certain it was completely false.

The trees were four dimensional. This was the first thing Mason noticed upon exiting his apartment. The next was Sera hissing at him.

“Stop drawing attention.”

“What?”

“Shh.”

He followed her gaze to a balcony. There were people there. Or brooms. Hard to say which.

Mason’s car was in sight when a multicolored bipedal dinosaur appeared and began walking alongside them.

Mason turned to it. “Oh hey! I forgot about you? Where you been old pal? This is Sera.”

Sera looked at him. “Mason?”

“Sera, this is Mauve. I think.”

“Get in the car.”

“Sorry Mauve,” Mason said. “You can’t fit.”

“I’m sorry,” the dinosaur said. “I’m not good at fitting.”

“Aw, don’t be so hard on yourself.”

They were stopped near Mason’s car. Sera frowned at Mason. “Hey, how’d you get here?”

Mason pointed.

On the street, twenty feet away, sat a fast looking, expensive looking, convertible. “That? Wow.” She glanced at his car, then at what he drove here in. “You still have the keys?”

Mason absently removed them from his pocket, held them out. He was looking up at the sky, looking ready to tip. She grabbed the keys, hit the unlock button to confirm that it was actually what he’d driven here—though the logo on the key pretty much eliminated all doubt—and when the lights flashed, smiled a smile that stretched wider than her eyes. “Come on, we’re taking that.”

In the car, the Dresden Dolls were playing, and somehow this felt sideways.

And as the lyrics played, it was as though there were two songs, and one was talking about anachronisms, and the other about citadels and dead kings.

They had just merged on the highway when Mauve appeared again, this time as Mauve, not a dragon. Mason had a sense of déjà vu, which quickly vanished when he remembered seeing Mauve on his way to college, in the backseat of his parents’ car, with his sister next to him.

She had been drawing… Mason couldn’t remember. It was something important.

“Hey Mauve.” Mason waved.

“Are you kidding me,” Sera muttered.

“So I guess that’s a demon?”

When Sera realized he was talking to her, she glanced quickly at him. “What are you talking about?”

“On the hood.”

“There is nothing on the hood. Your car doesn’t even have a— Oh, yeah, this car does have a hood ornament.”

“It’s got a seven foot hood ornament.” Mason burst out laughing.

Sera did not.

Mason wiped tears from his eyes. He pointed. “You seriously don’t see that dinosaur-huge purple-furry monster sitting on the hood of your car?”

“No.”

“My car.”

She glanced over at him.

“It’s my car.”

“Yes. I know.”

“I said it was your car.”

“Did you?”

“Yes.” He frowned. “Did I? Actually, it’s not even my car. That’s weird. Why are we in her car?”

“Mr Grey, you should just focus on the door.”

Mason turned to look at the door.

Sera sighed, and didn’t bother elaborating.

The roads were dark and curving, and scattered with unpaved stretches. Sera almost lost control and went off the side once. It wasn’t a big drop, not this low on the mountain, but they still would have been stuck. Then they would have had to get back to his car, and deal with telling whoever’s car
this
was that they’d crashed it.

Which would waste time.

She would need to get her car at some point. She hoped they wouldn’t tow it.

The whole drive, Mason—after he stopped staring at the car door—just looked out the window, saying nothing.

Sera wanted to put the top down, but she didn’t because that might set Mason off again about purple dinosaurs.

And so they just drove up the mountain in silence, heading to a circle of stones Sera hoped would have enough meaning to Mason to spur him on, to push him through that door.

“Someone wanted to replicate Stonehenge.”

Mason shook his head. “This is the same.”

“What?” They were back at the strange circle of stones and the mansion in process of being constructed. Which Mason had claimed had been like that for years.

But, he had also claimed a furry dinosaur had sat on their hood the whole way here, until they passed a McDonalds at which point it had jumped off, improbably sailed hundreds of feet through the air, then landed in the ball pit, all without disturbing any of the many structures in its path.

Sera had almost crashed as she had imagined that scenario, and had paid strict attention to nothing Mason had said after that point, lest they die.

Now, she returned her attention to Mason, who shook his head again, then sat in the middle of the stones, facing her. He closed his eyes. “It’s like the Blunderbuss. There’s many. And there’s one.”

Had she mentioned the Blunderbuss? She must’ve. She watched him in silence. He was just sitting there, moonlight making him glow blue. He could have been meditating.

She was growing inpatient, but didn’t want to risk interrupting if he was really onto something. He’d taken a ridiculous amount of Crumble, and if this didn’t work, nothing would.

This was mainly because it would probably kill him. And it was unaccountably hard to do anything when dead.

“They kept telling me I was dreaming,” Mason said dreamily.

“Who?”

“The ones you shot.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Were they…”

She looked at him. “What?”

“You said Martin is dead. That I’m supposed to find a door and bring him back. You saw them disappear, how they looked up.” He slowly turned his head to her. “Are they demons?”

“Or angels.”

“Angels?”

She looked down the slight slope they and the stones were atop, to the edge of the cliff, at the spot two large men in suits had been hours previous, the spot where she’d shot one of them. “They looked up to the sky, asking to be taken out of here.”

Mason shook his head. “It doesn’t feel right. Now that I’ve said it, they feel like men to me—or at least, the projection of men.” Mason squinted. “That’s what Martin called it: projection. What he was doing.”

“I don’t think he knows.” She shook her head. “When he comes to me, in my dreams—that’s how he does it, have I told you?—he brings remnants, images. Wherever he is, it appears to him as some kind of jail.” She shrugged. “An infinite number of heavens… Well, maybe there’s an infinite number of hells.”

“And you’re okay with trying to free someone from Hell?”

“Orpheus did it. Demeter too. It’s a mistake that he’s there.”

Mason thought about this, saying nothing. He didn’t believe in Hell—or Hades for that matter—but that wasn’t what was bothering him. The whole thing, it just didn’t feel supernatural. Then again, how would he know what that felt like? He
had
seen Ghostbusters, but he had never stayed at a Holiday Inn Express.

A minute passed in silence, then Sera heard a car. She walked to the edge of the ring and saw the car parking, right beside theirs. Then another, parking behind the first.

A man got out of the first car. “Em! What are you doing here?” He approached.

“Oh, shit,” Sera said under her breath. “How the hell did he find us? Hey, Mason,” she hissed into the ring. “It’s your friend.”

Mason stood. Walked to her side.

Dalton halted as he saw the previously hidden man exit the circle. “Hey, look, I don’t want trouble, I’m—” He squinted, leaned forward. “Emily?”

“No.”

He looked back at the car. “But… I saw you leave, then…” He looked at Mason. “That’s why you left the party and went to your place. Not to see him— erm, you. You live there.”

“Unfortunately,” Mason said.

“Why’d you take her car?”

“The reason does not concern you.”

Dalton’s friends were out now and by his side.

“I’ll decide what does and doesn’t.”

One of his friends put a hand on his shoulder, whispered something.

Dalton nodded. “It’s cool. We’re chill, right Mason?”

“It’s a cold night.”

“Are you high?”

“Yes,” Mason replied. He turned to Sera. “Let’s go.” Then he walked toward the car.

“Gladly,” Sera said under her breath.

Mason walked through the group of Dalton and his friends.

Sera halted, tensed, but they did nothing to stop him. She followed. They did nothing to stop her. She let out a bit of the breath she was holding, and hurried to the car. Mason opened the passenger door and was in the car, and the group still did nothing.

She got in the driver’s seat, let out a heaving breath then sucked in fresh air.

“You shouldn’t catch a cold,” Mason said as he put on his seatbelt.

The group just stood there, watching.

Sera felt a chill. It was unnerving how they were standing there, not moving, watching her and Mason. She started the car and got the hell out of there.

“That was weird,” Sera said as they got turned around.

“No,” Mason said. “Keep going up.”

“Why?”

“Do you want me to bring Martin back?”

“I don’t understand.”

“I don’t either.” He lifted his head in the direction he wanted to go. “I just know that way will get me there. I feel it.”

Technically they shouldn’t have had to go anywhere, it wasn’t like one place should be better than another. But this was a significant improvement from doubting she was real or seeing dinosaurs—or even sitting between stones—so Sera nodded and headed the way he’d said, accelerating fast past the group, who were now walking to their cars.

It didn’t take long for the headlights to appear.

Sera looked in the rearview. “Oh come on.”

“Can you see Mauve?”

Sera shook her head. “Your friend is following us.”

“Is he running?” Mason turned, saw the car, nodded. “Oh. Him. It will be fine.”

“No wonder hallucinogens are illegal.”