Scenes from the Secret History (The Secret History of the World) (34 page)

The word batted around the inside of
Sandy’s head, bouncing off the walls, looking for purchase on the disbelieving, rejecting surfaces.  Finally it landed and took root as Sandy accepted the glorious possibility that he would see tomorrow.

And he wasn’t alone.  Cheers and cries of joy arose from the multitude packed like sardines at the rear of the car.  Some were on their knees, tears on their faces and hands raised to heaven, thanking whoever or whatever they called god for deliverance; others were laughing and crying and hugging each other.

“We’re alive!” the film student under him said.  “What–?”

Abashed,
Sandy rolled off of her.  “Sorry.”

She sat up and stared at him.  “God, I can’t believe you did that!”

“Please,” he said, looking away to hide his shame.  He saw the GPM in a crouch, picking up something from the floor, but couldn’t focus on what he was doing.  Sandy had to frame an answer.  How could he explain the terror that had taken control of him?  “I don’t know what came over me.  I–”

“You shielded me with your own body!” 

What?  He turned and found her staring at him, her chocolate-brown eyes wide and wonder-filled.

“I’ve heard of it and, you know, seen it in films, but I never believed – I mean, you were like some Secret Service Agent!”

And then her face screwed up and she started to cry… huge racking sobs that shook her fragile body.

Sandy
’s befuddled brain finally registered that she thought he’d knocked her down and landed on her to protect her.  What did he say to that?

But before he could respond he heard a voice call out behind him.

“We’ve got a lady who’s still alive here!  Somebody get up here and help her!”

Sandy
turned and saw that the GPM had turned to face the rest of the car, but he’d first stretched his knit cap down to his chin.  The effect might have been comical but for that deadly little pistol still clutched in his hand.  What was going on here?  A few moments ago he’d had his face out in the open for everyone to see.  Why hide it now?

“Come on!” he shouted through the weave.  “Someone move their ass up here, goddamn it!”

A young black woman with cornrowed hair, wearing white pants and a blue sweater stepped forward. 

“I’m an OR tech.  I know a little–”

“Well, come on then!  Maybe you can save one of your fellow ewes!”

She edged forward, giving
Sandy an uneasy look as she slipped past him and hurried to a woman who was moaning and clutching her bloody head.  He understood her uncertainty.  What he didn’t understand was the anger in the GPM’s voice.

“Why me?” the man shouted.  “Why do I have to save your sorry asses?  I don’t know you, I don’t care about you, I want nothing to do with you, so why me?  Why did I get stuck with it?”

“Hey, mister,” said a tall lean black fellow who could have been a minister, “why you so riled at us?  We didn’t do nothing.”

“Exactly!  That’s the problem!  Why didn’t one of
you
put him down?” 

“We didn’t have no gun!” someone else said.

“And this creep knew that.  He knew he’d be dealing with a herd of human sheep.  Losers!  You make me sick – all of you!”

This was scary.  The dude seemed almost as crazy now as the mass murderer he’d just killed. 
Sandy was beginning to wonder whether they’d traded one maniac for another when the train roared into the Seventy-second Street station.  He saw the GPM pocket his pistol and turn toward the door.  As soon as the panels parted he leaped through and dashed across the platform.  In a flash he was lost among the crowd.

Find the rest here…
Hosts

August

The Haunted Air

(Harry Morris’s mind-blowing endpaper

from the limited edition)

With
The Haunted Air
I got to do a haunted-house/ghost story.  I also got to reference
The Keep
and foretell
Reprisal.
  (Menalaus Manor is the same house where Danny was found.)

My working title was
Spirits
(I have a thing for plural nouns as titles) but then I came across a passage from
Lamia
by Keats that nailed the story:

Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings,
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,
Empty the haunted air, and gnomèd min
e…

Have you noticed what’s been going on in the series?  I’ve done a techy thriller, a conspiracy novel, a medical thriller, an SF novel, and now a pure horror story.  But they’re all Repairman Jack tales.  I’m genre hopping within my series.  So. Much. Fun.

I decided to throw Jack a curve ball with Gia’s pregnancy.  I had no idea how he (or I) would deal with it, but I saw great story potential there. (Well, I hoped.)

The Curio Shoppe is a tip of the hat to Theodore Sturgeon’s wonderful fantasy short, “Shottle Bop”… about a store that sells bottles… “with things in them.”

I think I succeeded in making the haunted parts, well, haunted.  Here’s one…

The Haunted Air

(sample)

Lyle awoke to the sound of running water.  His room was dark, the windows open to the night, and somewhere…

The shower. 

“Now what?” he muttered as he pulled the sheet aside and hung his legs over the edge of the bed. 

He blinked and brought the display of his clock radio into focus:
1:21
.  He stared dully at the red LED digits.  He felt drugged.  He’d been way down in deep, deep sleep and his brain and body were still fumbling back to alertness.  As he watched the display, the last digit changed to a zero.

1:20
?

But just a few seconds ago it had been… or at least he’d thought it had been…

Never mind.  The shower was running.  He jumped off the bed and hurried to the adjoining bathroom. 

Lyle felt the steam before he saw it.  He fumbled along the wall, found the light switch, and flipped it on.  Billows of moisture filled the bathroom, so thick he could barely find his way.  He made it to the shower and reached out toward the curtain…

And hesitated.  Something told him not to pull it open.  Maybe one of those premonitions he didn’t believe in, maybe the result of seeing too many horror movies, but he sensed something besides running water behind the curtain. 

Feeling suddenly cold despite the enveloping hot mist, Lyle backed away, one step… two…

No.  He wasn’t giving into this.  With a strangled cry that anticipated the terror of what he might see, Lyle leaped forward and slashed the curtain aside.

He stood there in the steam, gasping, heart pounding, staring at a shower running full blast at max heat.  But the spray wasn’t running straight into the tub.  It was bouncing against something… something that wasn’t there and yet was.  And after the spray struck whatever it was, the water turned red and ran down into the tub to swirl away into the drain.

Lyle closed his eyes, shook his head, then looked again.

The shower continued to run and billow up steam, but the spray now flowed uninterrupted into the tub, and remained clear all the way down to the drain.

What’s happening to me? he thought as he reached in and turned the knob.

And then he sensed someone behind him in the steam. 

“Wha–?”

He spun and found no one.  But movement to his left caught Lyle’s eye.  Something on the big mirror over the sink… dripping lines forming on the moisture-laden glass… connecting into letters… then…

Words.

Who are you?

Lyle could only stare, could only think that this wasn’t happening, he was dreaming again, and pretty soon–

Three more question marks, bigger than the last, added themselves to the end of the question.

Who are you?
? ? ?

“I…I’m Lyle,” he croaked, thinking, It’s a dream, so play along.  “Who are you?”

I dont know

“Why are you here?”

The same words were rewritten below.

I dont know.  Im scared.

I want to go home

“Where’s home?”

I DONT KNOW

Then something slammed against the mirror with wall-rattling force to create a spider-web shatter the size of a basketball.  The lights went out and a blast of cold tore through the bathroom, plunging the climate from rain forest to
Arctic Circle.  Lyle leaped for the light switch but his bare foot hit a puddle; he slipped and went down just as he heard another booming impact break more of the mirror.  Glass confetti peppered him with the third impact.  He crouched on his knees with his forehead against the floor, hands clasped over the back of his head as whatever was in the room with him pounded the mirror again and again in a fit of mindless rage.

And then as suddenly as it began, it stopped. 

Slowly, cautiously, Lyle raised his head in the echoing darkness.  Somewhere in the house – down the hall – he heard running footsteps, and then his brother’s voice.

“Lyle!  Lyle, you all right?”  The bedroom light came on.  “Dear God, Lyle, where are you?”

“In here.”

He rose to his knees but could find neither the strength nor the will to regain his feet.  Not yet.

He heard Charlie’s approach and called out, “Don’t come in.  There’s glass on the floor.  Just reach in and hit the light.”

Lyle was facing away from the doorway.  When the light came on he looked over his shoulder and saw a wide-eyed and slack-jawed Charlie staring at him.

“What the fuck–" Charlie began, then caught himself.  “Dear Lord, Lyle, what you done?”

Charlie’s use of a word he had expunged from his vocabulary since he’d been born again told Lyle the true depth of his brother’s shock.  Looking around, he couldn’t blame him.  Glittering slivers and pebbles of glass littered the floor; the big mirror looked as if Shaq had been bouncing a granite basketball against it.

“Wasn’t me.”

“Then who?”

“Don’t know.  See if you can find a blanket and throw it on the floor so I can get out of here without making hamburger of my feet.”

While Charlie went looking, Lyle pushed himself to his feet and turned, careful to stay in the glass-free circle of floor under him. 

Charlie reappeared with a blanket.  “This one pretty thin but–" 

He stopped and stared, a look of abject horror stretching his features.

“What?”

Charlie pointed a wavering finger at Lyle’s chest.  “Oh, God, Lyle, you – you cut yourself!”

Lyle looked down and felt his knees soften when he saw his T-shirt front soaked in crimson.  He pulled up the shirt and this time his knees wouldn’t hold him.  They buckled and he crumbled to the floor when he saw the deep gash in his chest, so deep he could see his convulsively beating heart through the opening.  

He looked up at Charlie, met his terrified eyes, tried to mouth a word or two but failed.  He looked down again at his chest…

And it was whole.  Intact.  Clean.  No hole, no blood, not a drop on his skin or his shirt.

Just like what had happened to Charlie last night. 

He looked up at his brother again.  “You saw that, right?  Tell me you saw it this time.”

Charlie was nodding like a bobble-head doll.  “I saw it, I saw it!  I thought you was buggin’ last night, but now… I mean, what–?”

“Throw that blanket down.  I want to get out of here.”

Charlie held onto one end and tossed the rest toward Lyle.  They spread it out atop the glass-littered tile and Lyle crawled – he didn’t trust his legs to support him so he
crawled
– to the door.