A Life Transparent (20 page)

A young man stepped forward, squinting into the daylight. He held a flashlight in his hand.

Donovan got a good look at him. He was dressed in a tattered button-down dress shirt and torn khakis. Half of a tie hung from his neck. He looked, in all ways, like absolute hell, and that’s when Donovan realized he was staring at one of Dullington’s casualties.

•  •  •

“Who are you?”

“Name’s Joel.”

Donovan glanced at his brother, who remained on the steps. He shrugged.

“Joel. Do you know why we’re here?”

“Oh yes,” he said. “Mr. Dullington told us to expect you. He said you’d be nearby, and here you are.” He shifted his gaze over Donovan’s shoulder, toward the old man. “Is this Dr. Sparrow?”

Sparrow glared at him. Joel offered a weak smile and looked back at Donovan.

“Very good,” he said, producing a key from his pocket. “I’ll let you through.”

“Where is my wife?” His words sounded rushed, more panicked than Donovan expected, and he tried to get a grip on himself.

Joel ignored his urgency. He opened the padlock and pushed open the gate. It swung back with a shrill cry of agony that echoed down into the dark. He looked back at the trio and pointed his flashlight at the shadows.

“This way.”

Donovan hesitated, then took a breath and entered. The air was stale, musty.
This must be what a tomb smells like
, he thought, turning back to face the opening. Michael lowered the handgun and pushed it against Sparrow’s back.

“Easy does it, old timer.”

Sparrow waited at the threshold, glaring into the darkness. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead, and there was slight tremble in his chin. He caught Donovan’s eye just before stepping into the darkness.

“This is going to haunt you, Donovan Candle.
I’m
going to haunt you.” Sparrow’s words echoed down the stairwell. Donovan thought about responding, but the words faltered on his tongue.

Once Michael was inside, Joel closed the gate and engaged the padlock. He pointed the flashlight at Sparrow, forcing the old man to back away and squint.

“I’ve heard much about you, Dr. Sparrow. The master said you might try to run.”

Sparrow flashed a smile. “Your master was right.”

He moved fast, shoving his elbow into Michael’s gut. Donovan was still looking down into the darkened stairwell, and when he looked back at the commotion he was blinded by daylight pouring across the threshold.

Michael’s gun clattered on the floor. Sparrow snatched it up, spun on his heels, and was about to fire at the young man, but Michael was faster. He growled, grabbing the old man’s arm just as the gun went off. The shot filled the cavern, amplifying into a small explosion that made Donovan’s ears ring.

“
I won’t go back!
” Sparrow screamed. He used his free arm to claw at Michael’s face as the two men struggled into the shadows. Donovan lifted the revolver, but he couldn’t find a clean shot. Not that it would have made a difference—his heart was pounding like a jackhammer, and his hands shook along with it.

Joel pointed the light into the darkness of the shrouded tunnel, searching for the two men. They could be heard scuffling, but the beam of light failed to reveal them. Donovan muttered under his breath and stepped into the dark. Joel followed, lighting the way.

Finally, after a moment of searching, they heard Michael shout. They found him at the next landing. He knelt on the ground, a hand to his jaw.

“The son of a bitch clocked me.”

Donovan did not waste any time. He snatched the flashlight from Joel’s hands and descended the steps two at a time. Michael called out to him, but he did not stop. His body moved with a will all its own.

The beam danced across the walls, compounding his confusion and panic.
Find him
, his mind screamed. If Sparrow got away, Donna was done for. That thought raced laps across his brain as he moved down to the subway terminal.

The stairwell finally opened up into a larger cavern littered with garbage and other human detritus: broken furniture, bags of trash, food wrappers, discarded cans. A fire in an old refuse barrel illuminated the room, casting dancing shadows across its walls. Donovan concentrated his flashlight along the floor, following the beam of light to a token booth, its windows shattered and door smeared with years of grime. The smell of the place made his head swim. It stank of dried waste, and he wondered how long it had been since the transients—the Missing—had made this place their home.

There came a scream out of the dark, followed by a gunshot. It gave Donovan a start, his chest thumping with panic. Was it a woman’s scream? A lump formed in his throat. He fought back a bout of nausea.

Keep your head straight, hoss. You don’t know if it’s her.

There were more shouts now, some of them belonging to his brother and the young man he’d left in the stairway. Others came from somewhere further ahead, distorted and impossible to decipher.
Donna
, he thought.
She’s here. She’s close.

And she’ll be dead if you don’t find that old bastard.

He sucked in his breath and leapt over the turnstiles.

•  •  •

The stairwell gave way to the boarding platform. More barrels illuminated the wide room with dancing shadows that played tricks on Donovan’s eyes. The walls seemed to move with varying shapes. The whole room glowed a sinister orange hue, reminding him of a Halloween bonfire he attended as a child.

In the center of the platform, between two columns, stood a crowd of people. Donovan couldn’t tell how many there were. They seemed to wait, their attention focused on something at the edge of the platform. Some of the people, he saw, were covered in grime, their skin mottled with an ashy-colored pox. The smell here was even worse, and Donovan had to suppress the urge to vomit.

“
Put it down
,” a woman screamed. She sounded young. There were mumbles of concern and dissent among the group. Off in the corner, Donovan glanced at a pair of men kneeling over the body of a woman. He panicked for a moment, fearing it might be his wife, but her voice over the crowd caught his attention.

“Mister, please, you don’t have to do this—”

“Shut up, bitch.”

Donovan froze.
No
, he thought. He gripped the revolver and cocked back the hammer like he’d seen on TV. It clicked. A woman in the crowd turned, saw him standing there, then pointed him out to the man next to her. They watched Donovan force his way through the crowd toward the pair at the edge of the platform.

Dr. Albert Sparrow stood with an arm wrapped around Donna’s neck. She was frozen with fear, her arms limp at her sides like a ragdoll. Tears streamed down her face.

Sparrow pressed the gun against her temple. He saw Donovan at the entrance. He did not smile.

“I’m not going back,” he said. “I don’t know if I made that clear enough yet, but I think I’ve got your attention now. Drop the gun.”

Michael and Joel finally caught up to him. They ran down the stairs and halted at the opening. Donovan heard his brother mutter “Shit” under his breath.

“You don’t have to do this,” Donovan began. His mouth was suddenly very dry, and the revolver felt like a lead weight in his hand.

“Drop the gun.”

Donovan looked into Donna’s eyes. He wanted to cross the gap, take her in his arms, and hold her. He wanted to tell her how sorry he was—but he couldn’t. He glared at Sparrow as he placed the gun on the floor. Joe Hopper’s words came to him, except they weren’t really Hopper’s at all. They were Donovan’s, and the sound of them on his lips filled him with an unsteady terror.

“If you hurt her,” he said, “
I
will haunt you.”

Sparrow flashed a smile, taking the gun away from Donna’s head for a moment. “Your wife and I are going to walk out of here, Don, and we’re going to take the car. You’ll find her dumped on the side of the road somewhere. What you do now determines whether or not she’ll still be breathing when you do.”

Anger welled up within Donovan, climbing from his gut all the way to his head. His vision reddened. For a moment, he forgot about everything else. He forgot about the flickering, about his brother and the others, about his own measly existence. In that quiet span of seconds, Donovan saw only the old man and his wife. A cold weight coiled around his stomach, transforming into fingers that gripped his torso, lightly pulling him out of the Spectrum.

He looked at Donna. “I love you,” he said. Donovan breathed deeply as he took a step toward Sparrow. The old man pointed the gun at him just as the world shifted. Shadows gave way to a graying haze that filled the room like thick smoke. The cracked and grimy tile floor vanished, revealing a blank panel. The others shone through in clarity. He could see their features.
Liminal people
, he thought.

Sparrow was there, too, holding Donna’s darkened silhouette.

Donovan crossed the gap and charged into the doctor. The grays faded, filling in the blanks of the room with the spotted orange glow of fire in the shadows. Sparrow let go of Donna as the two of them tumbled off the platform and onto the old tracks.

The impact drove the air from Donovan’s lungs, but it did little to quell the fire burning within him. He drove his knee into Sparrow’s groin, eliciting a hoarse cry from the doctor. His gnarled fingers searched the ground around them, fumbling for the gun, but it was not within reach.

Donovan clutched Sparrow’s throat. He balled his other hand into a fist, letting his rage take over. All Donovan could hear was the smack of his knuckles against the old man’s face. All he could see was the image of Sparrow’s gun to Donna’s head. After coming all this way and compromising his own values, Donovan would not let anything happen to her, and certainly not at the hands of this man.

The room shifted again, colors becoming gray. The empty drone of the Monochrome took over. Donovan thrust himself off the doctor, panting. Blood dripped off his swollen knuckles, spotting the floor beneath him. In a few seconds, the dark red splotches vanished, erased by this pale reality.

He looked up. The Missing stood at the edge of the platform, watching.

Is that it?
he wondered.
Have I flickered out?

“Not quite, Mr. Candle.”

Dullington’s voice sounded as if from everywhere, each syllable accompanied by a tremor running through the very fabric of reality. Cretins emerged from the tunnels, spilling over one another, chattering incessantly. They stopped short of Donovan and Sparrow, climbing atop one another to form a column of white, squirming bodies. Aleister Dullington’s features took shape.

He looked down at Sparrow. The old man faded in and out of the gray haze, his body shimmering with color.

“Contrary to what Albert Sparrow told you, Mr. Candle, I am a being of my word.”

“No,” Sparrow groaned. Dullington ignored him. He set his black eyes upon Donovan.

“I am in your debt. You have done what no one else could do, and all in the name of love.”

“So that’s it, then?” Donovan crawled backward, resting against the side of the platform. “You’ll let my wife go?”

“Indeed I will, Mr. Candle. I must confess, under normal circumstances I would keep you here, and I still may.” A hint of a smile spread across Dullington’s face. “But that is up to you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your second chance, Mr. Candle. It
is
a second chance, and it
is
yours. Not many are granted one, but when they do it is earned.” Dullington’s voice degraded into a slow growl. “Albert Sparrow cheated his way to it.” He looked up at the others standing on the edge of the platform. “Take him away. He will flicker out in time.”

Albert Sparrow groaned, his voice distorted by the gravity of the Monochrome. Donovan watched the good doctor flicker back to the Spectrum. He felt shame for what he’d done, leaving the man to this fate—but he had no other choice.

“What’s going to happen to him?”

“I have plans for him, but he is no longer your concern, Mr. Candle. Do you remember what I asked you yesterday?”

Donovan did remember. “I do.”

“Good. Therein lies the way to your second chance. Consider it a life pitch.”

“A life pitch?”

Dullington nodded. “Define yourself, Mr. Candle. It is the only way you will truly stop the flickering. If you do not do this, you
will
see me again, and I am not in the business of granting third chances.”

The room shifted before Donovan had a chance to respond. He found himself sitting in the darkness of the subway tunnel. Dr. Sparrow was gone.

•  •  •

“Donnie?”

He found new strength at the sound of Donna’s voice. He pulled himself onto the platform. A group of the Missing watched him in quiet awe. Donna pushed her way through the crowd and threw her arms around him. He held her tight, eyes closed, relishing the moment, then pulled back and kissed her. It was a kiss of desperation and love, seeming to stop time.

When he pulled away, she gasped and smiled. Tears welled up in her eyes.

“I’m so sorry.”

“This isn’t your fault,” he said, fighting back his own tears. “This isn’t your fault at all.”

A young woman approached them. Donovan gave her a curious glance as recognition teased his mind. He’d seen her before, somewhere. Donna looked over at her, offering a weak smile.

“Mrs. Candle,” the woman said, “I’m sorry all of this happened to you. And you, too, Donovan.”

“Do I know you?” he asked.

Alice nodded. He couldn’t tell if she was smiling or frowning—the shifting shadows cast by the firelight made it hard to see.

“You did, once. We worked in the same department at Identinel.”

“What’s your name?”

“Alice Walenta.”

The name rushed out of the depths of his mind with the velocity of a bullet. He knew her face, and he knew her name, but not from the job. That connection was dead to him, but the rest—

The radio ads
, he thought.
The newspaper ads, too. “Her name is Alice Walenta. She is 5’9”, roughly 150 lbs, and has long, black hair.”
She fit the description, and he knew without a doubt that this was her. She belonged to Dullington now, another casualty of the flickering. George Guffin’s panicked words came rushing back: “
Some forget about us and others don’t.
”