Velvet Rain - A Dark Thriller (10 page)

They could go to hell with Brikker.

Stiffs. It had to be terrifying, losing your faith in everything in the blink of an eye. Crippling. But what they didn’t know, the lucky fools, was that they didn’t
know.

They
couldn’t
know. They were Stiffs.

To them the Turn was a hiccup in time, a hiccup they never heard. They could carry on with their lives, completely unaware that the kid in the water had just lost an arm to a shark not a moment ago … that they’d been shot in the head and lay bleeding in a crimson pool only seconds before. Stiffs were just that, just as Gramps’ nickname for them suggested: stiff minds. Closed minds.

Others were not so blessed. Relatively few in number but more than enough to warrant worry, those with the Sense, particularly those with such a rich mine of the curse—
they
knew. Those brothers in North Carolina knew; that woman in Miami. That cheating-prick hauler from Willow Springs. And—

A thought, the same that had plagued him, suddenly chilled him.

Why hadn’t he felt them?

It had been months since he’d felt a trace of the Sense. He used to know right off, but these days he could never be sure. The loss—and it was a loss, he had always taken it for granted his ability would be there—had been gradual. At first it seemed that his brain had simply misfired, misinterpreted. Rather than receive that warm lightheadedness, that dependable mild high, this was more like a radio tuning to the wrong station, getting weather when he wanted news, and he’d simply ignored it. Later, it was like tuning weather all the time, no matter what he wanted, a rambling of static, a jumble of stations; he could hear the weather, but maybe it was the news. It was confusing … mixed signals … and growing worse. But did static equate to the Sense? Could he rely on that? No. Even Stiffs were giving him fits. Some of them were setting off false alarms in his brain. Static when there should be nothing. A lot of it.

He seemed to be suffering a kind of mental block, as if the detection mechanism in his brain needing servicing. He supposed the years with Brikker had sharpened his skills in that area, heightened his awareness of the Sense, but it was possible that lack of use had, like muscles lying dormant, rendered his ability weakened and flabby. He could scoff at the idea, but was he getting old? It seemed a ridiculous notion at his age, but what was the old joke?
It’s not the year, it’s the mileage.
And he’d racked ’em up, hadn’t he, had rolled the Kain Richards odometer past the nines more than once. The Turn could be a bastard on the mind, a bitch on the body. And it had. It had.

But maybe—and this was far more likely—he was just getting careless. He could sharpen up.

Still—

Maybe the drugs had affected him. God knew what Brikker had done to him. Wouldn’t that be a sonofabitch? That after all these years, he would need the injections? If it were true, if his abilities
were
screwed up from the serum-fucking the man had given him, he would have to be far more prudent in his use of the Turn. Far more vigilant. Far less trusting … if that were possible.

Brikker. Goddamn Brikker.

The man held the Sense more deeply than anyone, his capacity for recall of alternate events even stronger than those with the Turn. He seemed a mutation, some freak in nature, a missing link between people like Kain and (he had always hated the phrase, yet it stuck in his brain like a pick)
normal people.
Brikker’s ability was uncanny. Frightening. Kain could see his fleeting shape, nestled in the shadows of that dark dungeon he called an office, candles flickering, the pendulum in that damnable clock rocking endlessly forth and back, forth and back. It was maddening, but not nearly so maddening as that painting the man kept. If Dali only knew how right he had been, he might have gone insane. Any normal man would. But not Brikker. Insanity
was
Brikker. The two were entwined like snakes. That the man could roll the dice like God and simply sit back and watch, over and over and over as he sent lambs to the slaughter, lambs to the slaughter, lambs to the slaughter … that was insanity incarnate. The Sense—Brikker’s Sense, which was twisted and black, an abomination—was rocket fuel for his obsession. One didn’t dare imagine what might be had nature slipped up, and cast the madman the Turn.

The ground settled as the last of the freight cars rambled by, the train westward bound, and he followed its fading plume along tracks that seemed to unfold forever. He had found this perfectly lazy spot outside of town, the view broad and inspiring, and the glorious sunrise took his breath away.
A man could spread his wings here,
he thought, and quickly chastised himself. What was he thinking? He could linger three weeks, possibly four, make some money and move on. His was the way of the drifter now. The way of the runner.

Would the way always be? Would the chase ever end?

He knew the answer; as clearly as scars in the mirror
.

It would end when Brikker ended it.

The train blared its horn twice in the distance, and this mild interruption settled him. He checked the time. He had better get a move on. He had called Big Al from the Roadside last night, had asked if it would be all right if he came in late. No problem. He drove into town and managed to make himself presentable in the diner’s washroom, had poached eggs and rye toast for breakfast, some good strong coffee, and by nine-fifteen was in the lobby on the pay phone, Brikker the furthest thing from his mind, dialing the number on the back of last night’s check.

~ 9

A woman answered on the fifth ring, and he recognized the voice immediately. He had expected the waitress, true, but she hadn’t actually said that the number she’d given was her own. He was glad it was. She had the perfect operator’s voice, soft and silky, and he was also glad she sounded all right. They talked a few minutes, and the directions she gave needed no writing down. She lived only ten minutes from the diner, on a farm just out of town.

He passed a barn badly in need of upkeep as he made his way up the long drive. He parked face to face with an olive pickup, one that had seen better days; its front bumper was dented badly in the middle, as if it had struck a tree. It had a small crack in the windshield.

He got out. The farmhouse, a large affair of two floors with big bright windows, offered an awninged veranda with a swing for two. Despite its fade and peeling white paint, it was welcoming. Brilliant flowers hung above the railing and all along it, a blur of whites and reds, alive with the sweetness of rose. Wildflower ran about the place in sweeping pastels, and down in the dry gully there, a grand oak stood among the flora, a bald tire hanging from its strongest arm. A crow burst from the tree and circled wide before it perched itself on the peak of the decrepit outbuilding. It cawed twice in quite the raucous, as if to certain the visitor it knew it was watching.

A ruckus made him turn. A German shepherd bolted from behind the barn, beelining for the road. Four wild cats hounded it, two of them black, one blindingly white in the sun with a patch of black on its tail, the last an orange tabby. The dog broke stride, cut a sharp left, and the cats veered with it, gaining rapidly. Just as it was about to break again, it dug in hard with its huge paws and stopped short. The black cats crashed into its hind legs like stooges.

The big beast took stock of the intruder. It lowered its head and growled. The cats got their backs up; the tabby bared tiny fangs and hissed.

He stepped back slowly. Now all the cats were making the sounds of snakes. The dog made a small move toward him and backed off. Its growl turned meaty.

He swung round and slung himself on the bed of the truck. The animal came at him with more brass kahunas than it had first shown, drawing so close he couldn’t possibly climb down and reach the cab. It was old, its black-brown coat deeply grayed, but there was life in its old legs,
and
its old choppers. Now it was circling in fits, barking up a storm.

“
Beakers! NO.
”

Lynn Bishop stood at the steps, and despite the odd circumstance, he couldn’t help but notice how striking she was in her simple summer dress. She held an anxious face as she hurried down. She stared at the cats, stunned. They wouldn’t stop hissing; they looked like crazed fanged puffballs. She shooed them off with a loud clap, and the felines scattered like a gang of bad-asses running away from a kid they were beating up on, after the kid’s bigger brother has just shown up.

She shouted the dog’s name again. It didn’t heed, so she snared it by the collar and struggled to rein it in. It fought fiercely, digging in to escape, but when she scolded it—an effort that seemed quite foreign to her—its temper seemed to evaporate; it let out a whimper and cowered behind her. She scolded it again, then sent it off with a firm point of her hand and a sound
GO.
The animal served up a pathetic whine, then lumbered up on the deck and flopped meekly in a corner. As if in shame, it buried its head in its paws.

“
What’s gotten into you?
”

She shook her head as she turned about, and with a small chuckle she seemed genuinely embarrassed of, looked up and said, “Are you okay?”

Kain, who by now was perched on top of the cab, nodded. Although suddenly he felt like the perfect idiot.

“I think you can come down,” she said. “Honestly, I’ve never seen him go off like that. And those cats … that was a little strange.” She seemed content to shrug it off.

“First time for everything,” he said, but he knew. Dog or cat, pig or rat—pretty much any beastie with four legs and a tail—didn’t take to souls with the Turn. They
knew.

To them, it was as if he were some kind of ghost. He had to laugh at that given his new nickname, but didn’t it fit, suddenly? He hadn’t had a pet since he was ten, hadn’t been able to step inside a zoo since … since the year he discovered what he was. The year he
became
a ghost. And with his life now, drifting from place to place, wandering through dead-end relationships, he felt like one. A phantom in want of a heart.

He climbed down.

“I’m really sorry,” she said.

“Four cats and a dog. A real animal lover, huh?”

“What can I say? A sucker for strays.
Seven
cats.”

“Do they all take after him like that?”

“Every last one. He’s terrified of them. Big suck.”

“Dog’s gotta get some backbone.”

“This is the first
I’ve
seen of it.”

The shepherd perked up as if it understood. It let out a muted growl, but slipped down and fell silent at its master’s displeasure.

“So … now that you know the place comes with a top-notch guard dog, care to see where you’d be staying?”

“No time like the present.”

She led him across the expansive yard to a small guesthouse, it too weathered its share of years, already making excuses for its shoddy shape. She had been hoping to paint it before someone moved in, she said, the house was next, and that barn, well, that rickety old thing would just have to wait. And just as she was about to tell him how it didn’t look like much, he said it was perfect.

“
Perfect?
Hardly. I almost didn’t give you my number last night. It’s so cramped.”

“If it’s got a bed, it’s plenty big enough.”

“The windows are shot.” The one near the door was a spider’s web, and the side window, boarded up from the inside, had a thick crack that ran a crooked diagonal from one corner to the next. “And the bed creaks—”

“Isn’t this the part where you’re supposed to be selling me on it?”

“It’s not exactly the Ritz.”

Kain circled it and stopped on the far side. All in all it stood in passable shape, although countless black marks blemished the wall on this side, most of them in and around a slightly misshapen rectangle of faded red paint. A large number weren’t even close to the outline. He looked behind him and discovered a small dirt mound in the weedy grass perhaps sixty feet away.

“You wouldn’t have a son named Ryan, would you?”

She regarded him quizzically.

“I’ve seen him pitch,” he said. “By the river.”

“He’ll only practice when you’re sleeping.”

“I’ll plug my ears with cotton.”

She held back a laugh, then burst; he joined her. Still, despite himself, he had to wonder how her son would take this. They hadn’t exactly hit it off.

“Seriously,” she said, still grinning. “He won’t be using it, not once it’s rented. But I understand if you don’t want it. I sure wouldn’t.”

“Forget about your
son’s
pitching. You really gotta work on
yours.
”

She shrugged.

He stood back and took it all in at once. He seemed to be going over something in his head, and then he cleared his throat as if preparing to make some grand speech. He raised his arms, waving them about like a crazed game show host.

“Now here’s a dandy,” he started, adding an over-the-top British accent to his theatrics. “Quaint one-bedroom farmhouse …
indoor plumbing?
—indoor plumbing, complete with bed and bath, all within arm’s reach, perfect for small child—”

She started to laugh again.

“—close to livestock, hissing cats and growling dogs, wide-open spaces—”

“Stop!”

“—easily converted to batter’s box, comes complete with bucket of baseballs—”

She was holding her gut now.

“—once owned by the Queen herself—”

“
Stop!
”

“—and offers a breathtaking view.” He looked right at her then, and Lynn Bishop reddened.

“You’re crazy,” she said, and she blushed again. It was remarkable how flattering it was on her.

“It’s perfect, believe me.”

“You haven’t even looked inside. The roof could be falling in for all you know.”

“If anything needs fixing, I can fix it.” He gave the barn a once-over, and then he turned to her home. It could use a new face. “And I’m pretty handy with a paintbrush.”