Ex-Purgatory: A Novel (22 page)

“Is that an SOS?”

“The pattern it is repeating is OSO,” said Karen, “which is why I said ‘attempting.’ It is a common mistake for those who do not know Morse code.”

The engine growled and the pattern of flashes changed. The radio switched on and shouted some talk radio at them. Outside the car, with the engine running, it was just distorted squawks.

“Do you think it’s going to turn into a giant robot?”

“Doubtful,” Karen said, “but I am becoming more open to what I would normally consider foolish ideas. I believe we should contact Madelyn Sorensen. I would like to hear more of her insights into this other world we are glimpsing.”

“That could be a little difficult,” said George. “She’s probably in a jail cell right now.”

“Why?”

“She’s the one who shot me.”

Karen shook her head. “As of one hour ago no arrests had been made and no suspects named. Your next-door neighbor across the hall heard gunfire and called the police. She claimed she did not see the shooter.”

“So she’s still out there somewhere?”

“I believe she did not intend to hurt you, George. She believed you would not be harmed and was attempting to prove it.”

“She could’ve just pricked me with a thumbtack or something. Next time I may not be so lucky.”

Karen gave him an odd look.

He gestured at his chest. “Like I told you, it was a million-to-one shot. The next bullet could’ve—”

“The next bullet did nothing,” said Karen.

“What?”

She stared at him over the car’s hood. “I told you I examined the scene of the shooting,” she said. “I discovered eleven bullets and shell casings. All were on the floor in the doorway of your apartment, all flattened from impact. Based on estimated range and damage to the surrounding walls, it was clear all of them struck some impenetrable object which had been removed since the shooting occurred.”

George looked down at his chest.

“At this point,” Karen said, “I believe it was taken away in an ambulance.”

His hand slipped up onto his ribs. Even through the fleece and the crisp new shirt, he could feel the sore spot fading. “You’re lying.”

“All the evidence suggests Madelyn Sorensen fired eleven rounds into your chest. Six while you stood, five more once you were on the ground.”

He rubbed his chest. His head was throbbing again. “The police would have said—”

“The police report said multiple shots fired. Their training tells them the bullets could not have hit you because that number of gunshot wounds would be fatal.”

George shook his head. He could feel moisture swelling in his nostril. Another nosebleed getting ready to go.

“Were they all lucky shots?” Karen asked. “Did each and every one of them hit a bone and bounce off?”

“There was only one bruise,” he said. It felt like a stupid excuse.

“I believe your doctor has succumbed to the same line of thinking as the police,” said Karen, “rationalizing something she cannot explain with traditional knowledge. She claims one bullet hit your sternum and was deflected. I believe only one bullet struck a bone. The rest hit soft tissue in your shoulders, abdomen, or throat which absorbed the impact.”

George remembered the huge pistol in Madelyn’s hands. The sound of it going off in the narrow hallway. The punch in his chest. Had it been dead center? He’d been looking right down the barrel, so shouldn’t the bullet have hit him …

Had she shot him in the head?

The pain behind his eyes faded a bit. He sniffed once, hard. The blood flow dried before it got severe enough to leak.

“Get in the car,” he told her.

She looked at the Hyundai and raised an eyebrow. “My vehicle is better suited for any—”

“Just get in,” said George. He got back into the car. The radio started to babble and he slapped it off. “I need to think, and it’s not going to happen here.”

UNDER OTHER CIRCUMSTANCES
, George would’ve been having fun. Traffic had been heavy on the 101 and at a near standstill on the 405, but his Hyundai wove in and out of the lanes, slipping between other cars without a moment of hesitation. He considered turning on the radio for some driving music, but didn’t want to risk more religious-show shouting in front of his passenger.

“You are an excellent driver,” said Karen.

“Thank you, Rain Man,” he said with a faint smirk.

The corner of her mouth trembled. It was the closest he’d seen her get to a smile. “Have you taken defensive driving courses?”

“Not that I remember.”

The ever-so-faint smile vanished and he realized what he’d said.

In truth, the Hyundai was responding like a high-end sports car, as if it knew just what he wanted to do and predicted his moves. The steering wheel almost moved by itself. The car didn’t slow down once until they pulled off the freeway in Santa Monica and waited on a red light.

A group of pedestrians made their way across the crosswalk. It was a large group for such a late hour, even in this part of town. They walked as if they’d all had a few too many drinks. Most of
their clothes were ragged and soiled. A few of them stared at the Hyundai’s windshield with chalky eyes.

The engine growled at them.

Karen turned her head to him. “Are you attempting to kidnap me?”

“What?”

“You are driving in an evasive pattern, to throw off followers. You have not told me our destination. I would be worth a considerable ransom if this was your plan.”

He met her gaze and tried to figure out if she was joking. Then he shook his head. “The car’s stopped,” he said. “Your door’s unlocked.”

“I am aware of that.”

“I think if you thought I was kidnapping you, I’d be unconscious in the backseat or something like that, right?”

She turned her eyes back to the road. “Something like that,” she told him. “The light is green.”

The gas pedal dropped away from George’s heel and the steering wheel turned left in his hands. They wove around another car and headed west.

“Okay,” he said. “There’s a guy out in New Mexico. Barry Burke. He’s been having the same dreams as us.”

“Who is he?”

“I don’t know. Madelyn told me about him. I know he’s in a wheelchair, and I think he’s a scientist.”

“Have you contacted him?”

George nodded. “I talked to him on the phone for a few minutes. He works at a lab out there. Sands? Sandy?”

“Sandia Laboratories,” she said. “Located in Albuquerque, New Mexico.”

“Yeah. That’s where I got hold of him.”

The clock on the dashboard said it was one in the morning. Karen pulled her own cell from her pocket. “Do you have a home or cell phone number for him?”

George shook his head. “I was having … head issues.”

She tapped three buttons and put the phone to her ear. “Albuquerque,
New Mexico,” she said. “The number for Barry Burke.” There was a pause, and a distant, tinny voice. “May I have the street names for all five?” Another pause. “That one, please.”

“You found him?”

“I have. They are connecting me.”

“Are you sure it’s the right one?”

“There are three B. Burkes and two Barry Burkes listed in Albuquerque. The second Barry is on Wolf Creek Road, which is just over half a mile from the Sandia Labs complex. A man for whom traveling is complicated, such as a man in a wheelchair, would most likely choose to live as close to work as possible.”

“They told you where the road was?”

“I have memorized street maps of all fifty state capitals, along with several other major cities such as Los Angeles, San Diego, Dallas—Good evening,” she told the phone. “I am trying to reach Barry Burke.”

Barry knew his dreams were of the geek persuasion.

In his dreams he always wore X-ray specs, just like on the back cover of old comic books, except these worked. People were walking skeletons surrounded by sparkling muscles and infrared auras, all wrapped in a glowing nimbus of electromagnetism. He could pick out individual wavelengths and energetic particles like a kid sifting through a bin of Legos. He could see fillings and surgical pins and pacemakers by the way they twisted and bent the magnetic waves.

And he could fly.

Which was good, because the other part of his dreams was sci-fi/horror geek stuff. Dead people filled every street and crowded around buildings. Hungry dead people. Their teeth clacked together again and again. The noise was like a hundred kids shaking a thousand dice in their hands at once. It was the sound of the saving throw you could never hope to pass.

They were the undead. They were ghouls. They were …

Frak, he thought, what the hell were they?

His voice was always distorted in his dreams. He’d never questioned it. It was probably related to the way people couldn’t recognize recordings of their own voice. Something about cranial resonance and sound waves. In his dreams, he sounded like a bad ’50s robot. Or a kazoo.

On a normal dream-night he fought the waves of the undead with blasts of pure energy—blasts of
him
—that turned them to ash. It was like aiming a BFG, and the blasts did tons of collateral damage if he wasn’t careful. Even if the dead things got close enough to touch him, his skin burned them away.

His skin was white in his dreams. Milk white. High-watt fluorescent light white. And kind of blurry. He was sure some psychologists would have a field day with that. It didn’t bother him.

He also fought side by side with a giant robot, which was cool. And the robot was also strangely attractive. Sometimes, despite the flying and the undead and the X-ray vision, it felt like things were tipping into a very different kind of dream. Although flying was supposed to indicate a different type of dream anyway.

This dream had the flying and the undead and the giant robot. But then he heard a low sound, like a brass horn section warming up. The noise rose over the chattering teeth in slow pulses and grew louder by the moment. The robot didn’t seem to hear it. Barry looked around and tried to figure out where it was coming from.

And then Barry recognized the sound. It was the sound of a blue police box, a kind that hadn’t been used in over fifty years, materializing out of the time vortex. His heart raced for a moment, and then he realized his phone was ringing.

Then he realized he was awake.

“Damn it,” he grumbled.

He rolled himself over. The phone’s brightness made him wince. He closed his eyes and felt around on the nightstand until the phone was in his hand. He glanced at the screen and saw
Blocked
as he answered. The voice on the other end was naming cities. “You better be very pretty or offering me a lot of money,” he said.

“Good evening,” said the woman. “I am trying to reach Barry Burke.”

“This is he,” said Barry with a yawn. “So is it pretty or money?”

“I am calling about your dreams.”

He was much more awake, just like that. “Who is this?”

“I believe we have a mutual friend. I am with George Bailey.”

He chuckled. “George Bailey, the loveable martyr of Bedford Falls? The guy who runs the Building and Lo—wait! George?” He sat up in bed. “You’re with George?”

“I am.”

“Hey,” called another voice beyond the phone. Barry remembered it from a few days ago, and from countless nights. He’d been kicking himself for not getting the other man’s number before they lost their connection.

“You have been having dreams of another life,” said the woman.

“Yes,” said Barry.

“A life where the world is overrun with animated corpses and you possess some form of superhuman abilities or powers.”

“Yes,” he said. “Yes I have. Are you one of the final five Cylons, too?”

“I believe the answer to that would be yes.”

“Wow.” Barry shifted himself back so he could lean against the bed’s headboard. “Okay, question for you. Do you know who George Romero is?”

“Our mutual friend has already shared this question with me. I also do not know the proper name of Romero’s creations.”

“Damn it.”

“A few moments ago you made a popular culture reference to the television series
Battlestar Galactica
, correct?”

“Yeah,” he said. “You sound very pretty, so please don’t tell me you’re one of those freaks who think the original series was better.”

“You are a follower of such genre material.”

“A follower?” he echoed with a chuckle. “Yeah, I am. Do you know me?”

“Please name another science-fiction series which is currently being aired.”

“What?”

“
Battlestar Galactica
aired almost five years ago. Can you name a network series since then? One on the air or even one which was canceled?”

Barry racked his brain. He’d been watching reruns of the second season of
Chuck
with a bit of
Deep Space Nine
, the later stuff where the Dominion War really took off. He tried to think of anything new that stood out. He’d been meaning to check out the new season of
Doctor Who
, but realized he wasn’t sure which season that was. Had the BBC taken another weird on-again, off-again hiatus, like they did with Tennant’s last year in the lead role? For that matter, what season was
Chuck
in? And how had
LOST
ended? He was pretty sure it wasn’t on the air anymore, but couldn’t remember a final episode.