I threw up out by the car because the stench of the dead man was still in my nostrils. It wasn’t the first time I had seen anyone dead or smelled death, but tonight it clung to me like shit on a stick.
Driving home, I could still smell it.
Several times I thought about pulling out my cell and dialing the cops, or calling Leonard, or Marvin, telling them what I found, but I didn’t. I don’t know why. I was overwhelmed with the feeling that had I arrived at the trailer just a little bit earlier, I could have ended up like Bert. It wasn’t my first close call, but it seemed to me there had been a bunch of them now, and that my string was bound to be running out.
As I went along the road that led out to the main highway, I kept feeling as if I were disconnected. A part of me kept wondering if I was still asleep, dreaming about all this. But I knew better.
When I got to the highway, I saw a dark SUV pull out and move up quickly. Maybe it was the one I had seen before. Maybe not.
I put my foot on it and sped up. I might as well have been walking. The SUV passed me like I was standing still, but when it got in front of me, it kept going.
Moving along like a jet. Pretty soon, it was out of sight.
My cell rang. I almost crawled out of my skin when it did.
It was Bert’s number.
I said, “Hello.”
The phone went dead.
Shit. They had Bert’s phone, and they had my number. If they had a way of tracing it, they could find me, and these days, with all the Internet stuff, that would be easy. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like what I did for a living. I didn’t like me. I didn’t like most anything I could think of at that moment.
I thought about Bert, and I thought about a person, or persons, who could do to him what they had. He’d been tortured. Maybe he did know something important, or maybe it was back to what I had thought before, they thought he did. Now maybe they thought I knew something.
Damn.
When I got home, I got out of the car and went carefully inside with my gun drawn. I looked around, went upstairs, looked it over.
I went back downstairs and looked out the living room windows, and then the kitchen windows, but didn’t see anything that made me want to start shooting. I felt strangely weak, in a way I had never felt before.
I thought about Brett. I could call her. I could tell her what I found.
I didn’t.
I sat in a chair in the living room and laid the automatic on the chair arm. I kept telling myself to get up and go to bed or make a call to someone. Leonard. Marvin. Brett. But I didn’t move.
I didn’t want to go upstairs.
I didn’t want anyone sneaking up on me.
I wanted to be near the front and rear doors by being in the center of the living room in the chair. I tried to sleep in the chair, but I couldn’t. I felt like I wanted to go to the bathroom, but I couldn’t.
I sat there.
And sat there, and then I realized I had gone to the bathroom. I was in the chair and I hadn’t got up, and I could smell myself. My mind seemed rational. Like it knew what was going on, but it wouldn’t connect to the physical. My emotions were on holiday.
Time folded in on itself. I didn’t move. I sat there and smelled myself and thought about getting up, but still I sat.
I had a feeling vampires were in the room. That they had turned to shadow and slid under the door and were behind me, but I couldn’t turn to look. I couldn’t move. I felt them come closer and closer and closer. They were crawling along the walls. I could see them out of the corner of my eye. When cars drove by on the road out front their headlights moved the vampires away and washed them into the walls, and as the lights passed, the vampires returned and melted down the walls and into the floor. I sensed they were flowing along close to my feet.
But still, I sat.
The sun came up. It reddened the curtains.
The day passed in what seemed like instants. I watched shadows moving along the wall again. They weren’t vampires this time. They were glimpses of time being stolen from my life. The room was as dark and heavy as if it were covered in thick black velvet.
I heard the door open, and Brett called out, “Hap?”
I tried to answer, but all my answers, like my emotions, were still on vacation. I kept thinking I would gather them up and weld them together and be myself, but I didn’t move. I might as well have been a turnip waiting to be plucked.
The room grew suddenly bright.
Brett touched me and called my name, and then I saw her nose wrinkle up from the smell of me, and I wanted to say I was sorry, but it just wouldn’t come out. Then I climbed into my spaceship and stretched out on my bunk and buckled in and looked through the windshield at the stars and colorful planets moving closer. I was cruising through the great black star-studded forever that was space. Twinkle, twinkle, little star, vampires suck blood, and humans make war. Ducks have feathers, goats have hair, pigs have pink feet, and Davy Crockett killed a bear.
A big black planet swung in from the right, and I could see the planet had eyes. The planet moved closer and I could see the planet had a resemblance to Leonard. The planet Leonard had arrived, and the knowledge of that made me feel better.
I heard Brett say, “I found him like this. I checked his vitals. They seem okay. Maybe I should have called nine-one-one.”
“I got him,” Leonard said.
I wanted to say something back. I could hear them and I could understand their words, but what they said were like trains passing in the night. I could see their words go by, but no way they were gonna stop and let me ride.
I was pulled right out of my spaceship. I felt myself floating upward (antigravity, baby), and I could see Leonard’s face clearly, and he was looking right at me. Brett said, “I’ll call the doctor.”
“He don’t need no doctor,” Leonard said.
“But-”
“I got him. Open the bathroom door.”
Yeah. That would be nice. I need to go to the bathroom. Again.
And then I was sitting on the floor by the tub and Leonard was leaning over the tub running water. I finally turned my head. It was no more trouble than trying to screw a large bolt through the center of the earth.
“Throw this shit away,” Leonard said.
I saw Brett’s hands taking my old clothes.
I felt cold. And then I was lifted, and I felt wet. But it was a warm wet. I didn’t feel cold anymore. I was drifting comfortably through space, and the great black planet called Leonard was leaning over me in the tub.
“He going to be okay?” Brett said.
“Goddamn right he is.”
I closed my eyes, and as I drifted down into the wet warmth, I heard Brett say, “What… what is it? What’s wrong?”
“Life,” Leonard said.