Tormented (8 page)

Benjamin was stuck in a loop of needing to do something, anything, but feeling absolutely like he couldn’t. “I have to leave,” he said, “but I can’t. If I do, they’ll catch me. But if I sit here, they’ll catch me.” And it had played in his head exactly like that for the last several hours.

“Where else can I even go?” he asked. “Where they won’t see me? Where they won’t …” He took a breath. Maybe it all was a dream, after all, and it was culminating in him losing his damned mind. Metahumans may have existed in the world, but he thought of them the same way he thought of Hollywood celebrities—they were out there, but he never saw them, so they might as well not have existed. Seeing Sienna Nealon’s brother in real life, in front of his own house …

It finally let the train on the loop jump the track.

“They’re coming for me,” he said. “Looking for me. I have to leave.” He looked up in the mirror, saw fearful eyes. “I don’t want to be caught by them.” He’d read the articles about what happened to metas—or what was suspected, in any case. No one knew for sure, after all. There were no trials, no word, and those people never saw the light of day again.

Whatever happened to them, it wasn’t for
him
, that was certain. After all, he hadn’t
meant
to. It just … happened. It was an accident.

“I want my life back,” he said, leaning back against the cloth seat in his tiny car. “I just want … my life back. I just want …”

He opened his eyes. He was still in the Snyders’ driveway.

Benjamin took one last mournful breath and started his car. Maybe they’d forget. Maybe it’d be all right tomorrow. Maybe it really was just a nightmare. These sorts of things didn’t happen to real people. He’d just …

He’d just wake up tomorrow and go on living. Things like this didn’t happen to him. Exciting things didn’t just happen to him. And he loved that about his life. It was steady. Predictable. Stayed well between the lines.

Yes, perhaps it was a dream. It was certainly too surreal to be reality.

Though that thought wasn’t much in the way of comfort, he clung to it with everything he had. Benjamin put the car in reverse and backed out of the driveway. He needed to sleep. To sleep, to wake up refreshed, and possibly somewhere else. Then, maybe, he could get back to the business of living life. Go to work tomorrow, come home, put everything else behind him.

Yes, that was what he needed to do. With unsteady hands, he turned the wheel at the end of his street and headed off to find somewhere to sleep, perchance to dream … of a better tomorrow, one in which today had never happened.

When I made it back to my barstool, there was a sweet drink waiting for me with pineapple and a maraschino cherry speared together in the middle of it. I wanted a sip but I held off, still a little put off by my experience in the bathroom. I’d peeked into the men’s room as I came back out of the hallway and found nothing—no sign of a mirror looking through into the women’s room or anything creepy like that, just a normal looking bathroom. Or, as normal-looking a bathroom as you can have with urinals. They sure as hell don’t look normal to me. Or private.

“Hey,” Brent’s face looked out from behind the curtain separating the bar from the kitchen, “burger’ll be ready in a few.”

“Is that so?” I asked coolly.

His forehead creased, but he mostly maintained his smile as he answered. “That is so. What’s up with you?”

“Why? Do I look like I’ve just seen a ghost?” I asked, trying to mask my irritation.

“Not sure I’ve ever seen anyone who’s actually seen a ghost,” Brent said, still sticking half out of the curtain like an actor trying to get a look at the crowd before a performance. “You mostly just look cranky to me. Did we run out of toilet paper in the ladies’ room again? Because if so, I’m sorry. Someone keeps coming in and stealing—”

“No, your toilet paper supply appears to be quite robust,” I said. If he was guilty of pulling this crappy prank on me, he was playing it cool in an epic way. Dude must have antiperspirant like a desert, because most people tend to quiver a little at the knees when I get mad at them. One time, at the Target returns counter, I sent a teenage clerk running into the back room when I “gently” (and accidentally) dropped a malfunctioning tablet through their wooden countertop. I thought it was a very savvy move on her part, actually.

Strength. I haz it. Control? Eh. Working on it, still.

“So what’s up?” Brent asked, emerging from behind the curtain. “In thirty seconds or less, please, unless you like your burger well done. Which is a funny way to say ‘burnt to a crisp,’ I always thought. I would have gone with, ‘poorly done—’”

“Playing pranks on me is not cool,” I said. “And by ‘not cool,’ I’m understating it like ‘well done.’ I actually mean, ‘potentially fatal.’”

“Whoa,” Brent said, hands in the air in utter surrender. “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. I would not prank you, and not just because of the fatal thing. I have not pranked anyone since primary school, and it was tossing a worm on Berrie Jansen’s dress in hopes that she’d notice me.” His voice diverged into a strange, quasi-European accent, and he sounded … stressed.

“Okay,” I said, in measured tones, lifting my head to look at myself in the massive mirror that stretched above the bar, “well, I just had a ghost-story type experience in your bathroom.”

He frowned. “Like … full torso apparition? Would it spike the PKE meter?”

I sighed. “Why do I encounter geeks everywhere I go? Yes, Egon. The mirror went dark, a shadowed shape told me I wasn’t supposed to be here—”

“That sounds more like a slasher movie.” Now he was frowning like he was mulling over what I was saying. Still no sign of deceit or trickery, and I was reasonably good at knowing when people were lying to me.

“Whatever it was,” I said, “it was clearly meant to freak me out.”

“Yeah, well,” he said, “it doesn’t seem to have done the job on you. I, on the other hand, might need a change of undershorts after that oblique reference to you killing me.” He leaned forward on the bar. “Do you still want your burger and drink?”

I thought about it for a minute. He seemed guileless, but that could have been a disguise. I’d been fooled by clever liars before, but … dammit, I was hungry, and it wasn’t like my cabin was going to be stocked with food. “Yes,” I said, “I still want the burger.”

“Then let me get that for you before it becomes not just poorly done, but shittily done.” He disappeared behind the curtain and a moment later his voice wafted out. “You can come watch me if you want, make sure I’m not … I dunno, lacing it with hallucinogens or whatever it is you think I might do.”

“I’d be more concerned about a hearty spit from you at this point,” I said, slipping up and behind the bar in a couple seconds, quietly moving aside the curtain. He glanced over his shoulder from where he stood at a prep station, plating my burger and made a hocking noise in his throat while smiling. I shook my head. “Gross.”

“I wouldn’t,” he said. “Not for accusing me of … uh … whatever you accused me of. Rallying ghosts against you or something.”

“I’m not accusing you of anything,” I said. “I was … probing.”

He held up a plastic-gloved hand. “You might need one of these if you’re going probing.”

“Try to pretend like you wouldn’t enjoy it.”

He chuckled as he put a tomato, lettuce and mayo on a bun before slapping the burger on top. “It’s like you already know me.” He picked up the plate, pulled some fries out of a cage above a still-bubbling deep fryer, and dumped them on my plate before salting them. “Your lunch is served, madam.”

“Oh, I’m a madam now?” I asked, making way for him to carry my food out of the curtain. “Explains why you think I might be okay with that sort of probing.”

“I like how we’ve already established this easy rhythm back-and-forth,” he said as he sat my plate on the bar next to my drink. “It’s comforting, isn’t it?”

“After the bathroom incident,” I said, “a spiked toilet seat might be considered comforting.”

“But seriously,” he said, leaning on the bar as I sat down, “this is the kind of relationship a bartender is supposed to establish. Make you want to be here, make you want to feel comfortable—”

“Ghost stories aren’t much of a comfort read.”

“—to make you feel like you’re someplace safe, where—”

“Everybody knows your name?” I asked, taking a bite of a fry.

He smiled wryly. “Hackneyed, but true.”

“Everybody already knows my name,” I said, “unfortunately. And speaking of hackneyed, aren’t you going to ask me how the first couple of bites are tasting? Isn’t that in the restaurateur’s guild guidelines or bylaws or something?”

“Ah, but you see,” he said, throwing a towel back on his shoulder, “I am a bartender.”

“And a short order cook,” I said, “and a waiter, and a one-man ghost prank—”

“I deny that last bit,” he said, frowning, “though now I am going to have to look into the women’s room—in a non-pervy way. Never heard that particular complaint before, ghosts and whatnot.”

“Yeah, well,” I said, finally grabbing the burger off the plate because my hunger could wait no longer, “maybe I’m just crazy. It’s not like my brain is bereft of reasons to be nuts. I can think of six perfectly good ones off the top of my head.”

“Maybe you’re just stressed,” he said, “or maybe the women’s loo here is haunted. Who knows? Have a drink, kick back, relax, and I’ll have a look at the ladies’ room while you eat.” He tossed the towel back over his shoulder. “Apparently you can add janitor to my list of titles.”

“Sanitation engineer nowadays, I think they call it.”

“That’s garbage man,” he said, disappearing down the hall into the shadows. I heard the squeak as he opened the door to the women’s room. “My God,” he said, loud enough I could hear him.

I paused mid-bite, staring after him. “What? Did you see something?”

“No, I just marvel sometimes at being allowed to go into the ladies’ room,” he said, turning to grin back at me; I could see his smile in the near dark back there. “Spend your whole life being kept out, like it’s got an invisible force field or something …”

“It’s called the force of law,” I said, taking another bite of the burger. It was juicy, delicious, and hit the spot. “Or possibly human decency? Social stigma? I don’t know.” I gave up and took a swig of my drink. It was creamy and sweet, and I couldn’t taste the booze.

“I don’t see anything in here that would lead me to believe a haunting has taken place,” he said, closing the door and walking back toward me. “No ectoplasm on the floors, just good ol’ fashioned urine.”

“Gross,” I said, “and also a lie. I was just in there, I didn’t see any urine.” I took another swig of my drink, which came in a martini glass, presumably in order to make me feel like a grownup.

“You’re really taking that down,” Brent said, slipping back behind the bar. “You want me to start on another?”

“I shouldn’t,” I said.

“Come on,” he said, coaxing, “have a drink. All work and no play, you know what happens.”

“You end up shouting, ‘Here’s Johnny!’ while chopping through a door with an axe?” Even the pickles on this burger were so good. Sooooo good. They crunched, were beautifully sour, and went with the mayo, which was like … seasoned or something. It was amazing.

“Something like that,” he agreed. “So, that second drink? Yea or nay?”

“I still have to drive to my cabin to check in,” I said, pushing the now-empty martini glass away. I devoured the last few bites of my burger in quick order, then ignored the fries. Not that they were bad or anything, but that was a whole lot of carbs.

“Believe it or not, we actually have a taxi service on the island—in case you get too loaded to drive yourself,” he said, leaning one arm on the bar. “Just FYI for later, if you’re of a mind to get annihilated.”

“Usually I’m the one doing the annihilating,” I said dryly as I stood up and idly tossed a twenty on the bar before heading for the door.

“Hey,” Brent said. “You want change?”

“Keep it,” I said, looking over my shoulder. “Maybe I’ll be back later, and I won’t have to tip again.”

“With a generous heart like yours, you might just get patron of the year,” he said, smirking. “Except for that whole thing where you made me check the women’s room for no apparent reason.”

I shook my head at him. It was impossible not to like the guy, he had charm. “Let’s hope it was no damned reason. The alternative …” I let my voice trail off as I headed for the ramp.

“The alternative is what?” he asked, and I looked back to see his features pinched with concern.

“Nothing good,” I said, shrugging, as I headed down the ramp and back out onto the rainy street. I was soaked before I even made it to the car.

After interviewing the mother and spending a little time canvassing Benjamin Cunningham’s workplace, a small tech firm about ten minutes from his house, I was out of ideas and told Augustus so: “Well, I’m tapped.”

Augustus was frowning, hadn’t looked happy in a while. “I can’t believe I missed class for this.”

“Hey, this is a serious crime,” I said.

He made a grunting noise. “I’m not saying the crime wasn’t serious. I’m just saying I’m not sure it was worth missing class so I could tag along and watch you flirt with an FBI agent then get called ‘you people’ by an angry mother. And Cunningham’s workplace was a total dead end. That man is bland as unsweetened oatmeal. Nobody even knows him other than his boss and his cubicle-mate, and that girl didn’t
want
to know him.”

That was true. Cunningham shared a cubicle with a woman named Jessica whose whole faced pinched up at the mention of his name. They did not have a happy history, which she did not fail to mention in excruciating detail. It wasn’t all that interesting, though; her criticism basically boiled down to the type of petty stuff you’d hear first-time roommates squabbling over.

“What’s the move?” Augustus asked.

I looked over at him from behind the wheel. It was just before rush hour, technically, which meant interstate 694 was already packed in the stretch near Fridley that we were driving. “Back to base, I guess.”