Dark Advent (9 page)

She hung up, then clicked off the TV just before the final story came on. Had she seen it, she would have had considerably more to worry about than just her brother. It dealt with a quarantine on the entire little town of Potosi, almost forty miles southwest of St. Louis. Officials weren’t yet identifying the disease causing the quarantine, although sources had said it could possibly be a new strain of viral meningitis. The names of one family, all now dead, were released…the father, the mother, infant daughter, their eleven-year-old son named Chuck.

Erika tiptoed through the house, close to her parents’ room, where the sound of slow, deep breathing filtered into the hall. She eased open the door to the linen closet, where her mom kept her purse when not using it, and searched until she found the other set of car keys. She pocketed them, grabbed the bowl of popcorn, and left.

Erika took I-270 west into Hazelwood, one of St. Louis’s endless suburbs, exited onto Howdershell Road. It was dead out here. St. Louis itself might never sleep, but the suburbs sure did.

Erika checked her scrap of paper once more. The turnoff was coming up shortly, she was sure of it. She reached for another fistful of popcorn.

It hit before her fingers closed inside the bowl.

Erika found herself staring at two converging realities. While still inside the car, she was also standing at what she took to be a roadside, at the shoulder of some unknown stretch of highway. Even though she knew, somewhere within the mental sliver that was firmly clinging to reality, that this was the dead of night, she could nevertheless see an enormous blue sky overhead. Could feel the burning of an angry sun.

Erika could still see Howdershell Road, past the sun, through it, a pair of overlapping images, like two photographic negatives laid one over another. She cried out while fighting to maintain control of the car; so much sensory overkill was hell on concentration. She’d swerved across into the wrong lane. White lines crisscrossed in front of her, blending in and out of the rays of this false sun. She aimed back across the road.

This wasn’t right…this wasn’t right at all. It had never happened like this before.

NOT WHILE I’M AWAKE!

She was dimly aware of screeching tires, and Erika instinctively knew that, given the force with which this was coming in, she’d tapped into something as important as she ever had before, maybe even more so. It had invaded her waking world, punched a hole through the safety net she’d always believed that consciousness provided.

A horn blared, a pair of huge twin suns grew nearer, and she dodged to the right to miss them. Trees and buildings and gas stations and 7-Elevens were out there, flashing quickly past, flashing
too
quickly past. For one terrifying moment, she couldn’t remember which of two places she was.

As she looked about in this pseudo-daylight world, this transplanted reality, she saw a puny line of trees near the highway. A brutal summer sun had been unkind to them. Erika felt the emotional resonance of others around her, a small group of people, a small handful, no more. Faces? Numbers? No good. They’d been kept from her. But fear was the common denominator, a panic barely kept from growing out of control. And maybe, just maybe, she felt…love. Unquestioned and unconditional, the kind of love that says
You’re the reason I live, you’re the reason I’ll die…

She saw another twin sun in the distance, a pair of falling stars heading straight for her.

Erika looked to the left, saw a huge green sign, a flock of birds roosting atop its edge. An interstate sign, its silver reflective lettering hidden from her mind’s eye, though she believed the important word or words began with N, and then the birds exploded upward in flight as if possessed of a singular mind and will, soaring into the blue, and through the maelstrom of their wings she heard a furious wail that sounded unnervingly like braking tires and a panicked horn, and for one endless moment she feared that these two wildly disparate worlds were going to tear her in two and each would claim half.

Impact.

The other car struck her grill on the driver’s side, bashing it in and ripping away the fender to skid sparking in the street. Erika’s car swung to the right, tossing her across the front seat and into the passenger door. That burning daylight roadside receded far, far away, leaving her very much in the here and now. Popcorn showered past her face; a moment later came glass. The car spun like the worst carnival ride she could imagine, the kind where you know you’re going to toss your junk food as soon as you step off.

Yet everything felt in slow motion. Amplified.

She heard thunder, more grinding metal, felt the world tilt beneath her. Erika pressed her hands to her eyes and screamed, and the next thing she knew she was crawling around on the underside of the car’s roof, feeling the dome light jamming into her ribs.

The carnival ride was over. Everyone please exit to your left.

She found a window open. Driver’s side? Passenger side? That was a toughie. Erika wriggled through an opening that hadn’t been quite so tight moments before, and sprawled onto the pavement. Her horn was blaring eerily, a dying voice that refused to be silenced. Just like a thousand car wrecks she’d seen in a thousand movies, only now she was living it, fantasy had become reality.

It hurt to stand, hurt to walk, hurt to cry, hurt to breathe. She got a few steps away and gave up, tumbling into the street and feeling warm asphalt against her cheek. She heard other voices, other car doors, but these were far away, beyond even dreams.

She heard something coming toward her. No, not heard, exactly, felt it more than anything. Something wet and warm and snuffling caressed her upturned cheek.

And she thought wouldn’t it be funny if the last thing on earth to comfort her was that dog licking her face.

11

He lived for the arena.

When he stepped into the ring that night, he knew it was going to be a special evening. He felt it in the air, its electric taste. In the crowd. In the canvas and ropes of the wrestling ring itself.

The crowd booed when Pit Bull Pearson stomped from the locker rooms on his way toward the ring. He was, in a word, hated. Pit Bull was known to fans as one of the infamous rulebreakers, a dirty fighter who wouldn’t think twice about jabbing the eye, elbowing the groin, dislocating the knee.

But Pit Bull didn’t give two hoots. He had a job to do, and it didn’t include being loved
.
He strained at his leash, its other end wrapped tightly around the scarred fist of his manager, Allen Steiner. The thick leather of his spiked collar dug into his neck. He snarled at the crowd, bared his teeth. Took a swipe at a jeering spectator who got too close.

“Down boy, down!” cried Steiner, raring back with the leash. You milked the theatrics until they ran dry. Give them
a good show for their money.

A hailstorm of greasy popcorn showered from the smokebank above, several kernels pelting Pit Bull’s bald head. He wiped angrily at his scalp, flailed his arms at the screaming crowd, howled at them. Tonight, oh tonight he was wired.

They mounted the steps to the ring, and Pit Bull tried to hurdle the ropes. Steiner kept a tight rein on him, marveling at just how deeply into character Carl Pearson had immersed himself tonight. So long as Steiner had known him, Carl had never been a sedate individual, but tonight the guy was living on the razor’s edge. Steiner planted himself at the ring’s outer corner and looped Pit Bull’s leash around the top rope, which thrummed around the entire circumference with Pit Bull’s struggles to tear loose.

The tide of favor within the crowd abruptly shifted—Pit Bull’s opponent had entered. Opponent, and they would all be hoping, his demise…the blond, suntanned prettyboy Strong Jack Armstrong. His white trunks were coated with silver and gold sparkles, and he flexed his muscles for the crowd…biceps, deltoids, hairless pectorals. His smile was nothing short of dazzling.

And the crowd ate it up.

They cheered, they applauded, they frantically waved their arms. Women screamed promises of undying passion. Had the crowd been clad in the finest silks and linens, they gladly would’ve cast them down before Jack Armstrong so he wouldn’t sully his feet on the way into the ring.

Steiner drew one arm back, keeping a taut line on the leash. With the other hand he massaged Pit Bull’s tightly bunched shoulders, bent in close to talk in his ear.

“Keep your high going in. But ease back down in about five minutes.” Steiner slapped his hand down on Pit Bull’s shoulder and massaged harder.

The referee came to center-ring to make his announcements about this next battle. Strong Jack Armstrong was of course the favored wrestler in the match. The official ratings in
Wrestling Today
magazine listed him as the number four athlete in the Missouri Division. Pit Bull didn’t even make the top ten, but he was considered strong contender material.

“Give ’em a good show, about twenty minutes’ worth,” Steiner said into Pit Bull’s ear. “All you’ve gotta remember, this isn’t
your
night.”

He unhooked the spiked collar, holding it and the leash in his hand while Pit Bull sprang toward the center of the ring, and the match began.

Pit Bull put Jack Armstrong to the canvas with a diving clothesline. And
knew
it was going to be an electric night to remember.

* *

Wisconsin: Milwaukee and Green Bay.

Creepy Carl, Creepy Carl.

Iowa: Cedar Rapids.

Creepy Carl, Creepy Carl.

Illinois: Peoria and Springfield.

Creepy Carl, Creepy Carl.

Missouri: Columbia, Jefferson City, and finally, St. Louis.

Creepy Carl, Creepy Carl.

The chant had seemed to follow him everywhere he went. The other kids had picked it up from the kids who’d known him before without ever having met them, as if by a process of diffusion. On and on down the line, and he feared the litany would be eternal.

It had followed him through a seemingly endless gauntlet of state-run homes. Why hadn’t they liked him? He spent long hours before the mirror puzzling that one over. He’d always been taller than the others his age. And while he hadn’t started to fill out until his mid-teens, he’d never looked awkward. Even as a child he’d looked strong. His face? Maybe there lay the problem. His jaw was crooked, for one thing, a souvenir from some long-ago, forgotten altercation with his father, whoever that had been. It was a strong jaw, firm and often clenched, but crooked. And his eyes…maybe they were the biggest problem. Deep-set and blacker than midnight, like two huge irises, they peered out with what appeared to be a barely held lunacy, ringed by heavy ridges of bone.

Yup, it was the eyes that did it. Those windows to the soul.

Creepy Carl…

They only called him that to his face when they were in groups, where there was safety in numbers. Later, when he was old enough to look back on his years as a ward of the state with a certain degree of objectivity, he realized that he heard it less and less as he’d gotten older and taller and stronger. That often, he’d heard it only in his head, an echo out of a rootless, transient past. And the last thing about it he realized was that he’d long since stopped caring
what
they called him.

They…

It was always they, and them. Never we, never us.

But after he’d found his direction, it hadn’t mattered very much.

He remembered The Day, as clear as yesterday and as unattainable as the farthest star. How old had he been? Ten, maybe, or eleven? He’d never been quite sure of his age, but The Day, at least, was approaching twenty years past. It was a time of turmoil, of war, of assassinations of politicians and civil rights leaders, of a new president who would one day flee his office in disgrace.

The country was coming apart, it had seemed to many, and it was all a million miles away to a young boy named Carl Pearson as he stood hands-in-pockets to watch other boys play a game of touch football.

Touch.
He sniffed in disgust. He didn’t want to play anyway, not touch. Not when he couldn’t tackle somebody.

“Carl? Hey Carl.” Behind him.

He turned, found himself facing Marty Betts, who was two years older but five inches shorter and probably forty pounds scrawnier. Marty’s narrow face was twisted up with even more anxiety than usual. He was frequently the dumping ground for a lot of the older boys’ frustrations as they tried to make normal lives for themselves and tired of finding it impossible.

Carl said nothing, and half-turned to watch the game. A spring breeze, both cool and warm, flipped his errant forelock of hair. For these early days came long before he’d gotten rid of his hair, long before he’d begun thinking of himself as Pit Bull.

“Am I bothering you?” Marty asked.

Carl twitched an indifferent shoulder.

Marty smiled, a nervous smile at the very best. Clearly he wished he were someplace else. “Could I ask you something?”

Next would come the taunts.
Were your parents cousins?
They had a million of these. But then Carl backed up mentally. They wouldn’t come from Marty, not little Marty, all alone and vulnerable.

“Go ahead.” Carl rarely shifted his eyes from the game. What would it be like to be out there, running free, a faceful of wind and the pigskin tucked under his arm, leaving a wake of laughter and curses as he dodged everyone who tried to tag him? Returning triumphant to the rest of his team, to slaps on the back and punches at his shoulders?

“I said go
ahead.
”

“Okay, it’s like this,” Marty began, too rapidly. “There’s this new band out, I don’t guess you ever heard of ’em or anything, but they’re called Led Zeppelin, and they’re really bitchin’. I’ve been saving up my money from our chores and odd jobs for weeks just so I could get their album.” Marty stopped to wet his lips, fearing he was losing Carl. “Anyway, I got it yesterday, but last night before I even got a chance to listen to it, Scott Willis broke it. Just snapped it in two over his knee. The son of a bitch.”

Carl continued his vigil over the game. Scott Willis was out there with the rest of them, whooping it up, his limp reddish-blond hair flapping against his collar. He said his hero was John Lennon, and he even had the little round glasses to complete the ensemble. He was a couple years older than Marty, even. Fifteen, maybe.

“What’s that got to do with me?” Carl asked, finally turning to face Marty.

Marty took one glance into those weird eyes of Carl’s and looked as if he liked it better when the tall, goony kid was staring away from him.

“I was wondering…” Marty said, faltering. “I was wondering if you could…hit him for me.”

Carl rolled his deep-set eyes up and knocked his shoulder against the maple he was standing beside. He bounced once, twice, then stayed leaning against it. He chuckled, a sound of almost childlike innocence so at odds with what radiated from his eyes, and the set of his jaw.

Marty dug into his pocket, pulled out his fist. “I mean, hey, I’ll pay you for it and everything.”

Carl frowned with vague interest, absently peeling bark away from the maple with long-nailed fingers.

Marty grinned nervously and unrolled a wadded-up ten-dollar bill. “I’ve been saving this for someday special, for a long time. And I guess that’s now.” Actually he’d spent every bit of his money yesterday on the album and a few games of pinball. The ten he’d stolen this morning from another kid’s room during breakfast.

Carl was growing more interested with the cash in front of him. “You really mean this?”

Marty offered it forward, his arm locked rigid. “It’s yours.”

Carl pondered it a moment or two, working his tongue against the inside of his cheek. Then he plucked the bill from Marty’s fist and stuffed it into his own pocket.

“Great,” Marty said, relief washing over his face like a spring shower. “Great. When you gonna do it?”

“I don’t know yet,” Carl said, and at last he turned back to resume watching the game, the older boys scrambling one way, then another. “But don’t stick so close now, okay?”

“You got it,” Marty said with exaggerated agreement, although he wasn’t a bit sorry to scram from Carl, to get someplace safe and watch the show.

He didn’t have to wait long. The game broke up a few minutes past four-thirty, scarcely a half-hour left to clean up before dinner, favoring muscles that were beginning to ache, maybe affecting a bit of a limp if a girl you liked was around. The players ebbed from the field in twos and threes and fours, scattering toward the various cottages before converging on the cafeteria.

Scott Willis walked with two others on a path thirty yards away. Carl left the cover of his maple, aiming at a point where their paths might cross.

Might as well get it done.

His shadow lengthened in front of him as he neared Scott and the other two, all of them at least four years older, but none of them taller. They ignored him as he drew up alongside, his hands still thrust deeply into his pockets.

“Scott. Wait up a second.”

Scott Willis stopped abruptly, turned toward Carl, his face showing irritation as his sweaty hair hung limply about it like a tattered curtain. He planted his feet an arrogant distance apart.

“Whatta
you
want
,
Carl?” His voice was icy. Maybe he’d affected the John Lennon hair and glasses, but he must’ve never heard the Beatles’ call for love.

Carl glanced quickly from Scott to his two equally annoyed friends and back again. No way would he get out of this unscathed. But he had his commitment to Marty, and now, to himself.

“I got a message for you,” Carl said.

Scott said nothing, merely cocked his eyebrows and waited.

Carl delivered.

He swung his foot up between Scott’s wide-stanced legs and planted it into his groin with the force of a lumberjack bringing his axe down into the notch of a tree. Scott’s hips shuddered backward and he doubled over with a choked cry. He was still dropping to his knees when Carl brought his other foot squarely into Scott’s face. Scott reeled backward, arms flailing to regain his balance. The little round wire-rimmed glasses went flying, now bent in the middle. Scott hit the ground like a grainbag and clutched the skewed remnants of his spouting nose.

The two friends were on Carl a moment later, fists raining down endlessly, but Carl managed to curl himself into a tight ball, squatting low. He barely felt their punches, their kicks. He heard a counselor running over, crying out to stop it, stop it right now, I
mean
it. Under this he heard cries of, “Well,
he
started it!”

After the counselor had disentangled them all and led Carl away to the director’s office, his hand clamped onto Carl’s upper arm, he took one look back at Scott and the blood. And he felt
good
about himself, the first time in recent memory. He’d finally pleased someone
,
hadn’t he?

That night he huddled in the corner of his room. He’d been confined here for a month, except when attending school and meals and the bathroom. Big deal. He caressed the paper in his hand.

The radio, his sole companion, played softly. The tune was a real high-energy number from a new band. Marty had been wrong. Carl knew exactly who Led Zeppelin were; “Communication Breakdown” was already one of his favorite songs.

Seemed like people were always misjudging him.

But he’d made Marty happy, and now that was more important by far. Little Marty, who got picked on because the other boys had no use for him either. And who had never, come to think of it, called Carl names along with the rest of them.

He huddled into his corner, eyes cast upward, seeing past the peeling colorless paint of the ceiling. If he’d been able to pull the walls around him like a blanket, he would’ve.