The Twelve-Fingered Boy (26 page)

And what if one of the people were from Maryland?

But more than my unease at possessing people, I don't like that while you're in there, they have to go. You have to boot them out into the wide blue yonder. What does that leave them open to?

I'm not really comfortable doing that to this nurse. She's just doing her job. She came to work tonight never expecting to have someone go all Exorcist on her.

But I have to see Vig again. I have to see Coco. Even Moms and Booth.

I don't want my life to end here. Snuffed out by Quin-crux because I won't give him what he wants—because I won't give him Jack.

I dig around in her head until I know what I need to know. I turn her around and march her out to the break room down the hall. I have her take from her locker an extra set of the green pajamas all the hospital staff wear. I'd rather they be a man's size, but I'll take what I can get. Anything is better than trying to escape with my butt hanging out.

From her wallet she removes her cash: forty-six dollars. No one carries around cash these days. Then she checks other lockers until she finds one that isn't locked. Inside are a blue-jean jacket and a pair of tennis shoes.

As she's walking back to my room, I'm struck by a moment of dizziness and have to put out my arms. Possession is like having two TV shows on at once and trying to follow both stories. Your consciousness is always tugging at you to reenter your own body, but you're also getting input from your…

Your host. That's what Quincrux called it. Your vessel.

God, I'm everything my mother said I am. And worse. So much worse.

I'm the devil now.

The nurse brings me the clothes, the shoes, and the money—nodding and smiling at Weasel on the way into my room—and lays it all down on my bed. Weasel never suspects.

I walk her out of the room, down the hall, past the nurses' station.

“Hey! Lacy? Where are you going? We need you to check on Mrs. Peterson in thirteen. Lacy?”

It's like moving a boulder, but I make her turn her head and say, “Okay. Be right back.”

It sounds a little mushy-mouthed, to be honest. But I don't have a lot of practice at this.

“Are you okay? Lacy?”

Walking is easier than talking. I get her legs working again and move her over to the elevators. Raise arm, press down arrow.

“I'm fine.” That sounded better. Less mushy-mouthed. For a moment I'm amazed by the feel of my tongue forming the words. Her tongue. It's hard to keep our bodies straight.

The two night nurses stare at me, and I stare back.

“Just gotta check something.” That bit actually sounds good.

The doors slide open, and I move inside. The line between puppet and puppeteer has disappeared now. Once I'm sure the elevator is heading down, I let her go. I have to. I could get trapped in here.

This is the worst part, really. Once you take hold of someone, the body doesn't want to let you go. But Lacy is out there, hammering to get back in. And now that I'm thinking in her body, using her brain, referring to myself as I while wearing her skin, my… awareness … my soul, even … doesn't want to leave her.

I'm descending, rocking back and forth in the elevator carriage and watching the numbers decrease over the door. On the inside, incarcerado, it's a fight to unclench. To let go.

That bit of me that is purely me twists and frets to be let loose. And Lacy screams to be let back in. She hammers at me, she writhes and squirms.

Suddenly I'm out and gasping back in my room.

“Thank you. I'm so sorry.”

Nothing. She's gone. I only have a few moments until she puts everything together. God, I hope I haven't infected her with this … horror. This terrible gift.

No more time for remorse. Only time for rock and roll.

The Weasel is even harder to possess. Has he been to Maryland? To someplace nearby? Does that matter? Do the witch and Quincrux have the same problems with Marylanders as I do? Or can they overcome it, the mysterious rider?

Weasel's older, for one, and his grip on his body is more tenacious, maybe. I have to force myself in, bully my way through. And the Weasel is strong. It's a fight. He doesn't understand what's happening, but he instinctively knows he doesn't want it to continue. He throws up defenses. His body tightens, and he bites his tongue, hard, until blood comes and the pain blossoms, bright and overwhelming, and I lose ground. I feel my control slip. I'm sliding back to my body.

But the pain dies, and I have real reason to fear that this is my only way out. So I have to get rough. MeShreve closes his eyes, and I tear myself away from my birthbody. I hurl myself through the darkness between lights, and I invade Weasel. On all fronts, I attack. I fill his senses, his eyes, his skin. He can hear and taste me. I fill his mind with me, my essence, that part of me that is nothing but me—not body, not habit, not blood or flesh, but me. Solely. And I hurt him. While he fights me, I race through the chambers of his mind. I find his moments of weakness. His hurts and betrayals. His failures and losses. All of it, I force on him. I make him relive it.

He flees into the beyond. And I have control.

We stand. MeWeasel remains outside the door, and MeShreve walks out, clad in the new clothes that are tight in the legs and crotch. The shoes are too large, making walking more difficult.

But once those parts of me near each other— MeShreve and MeWeasel both outside my room —we/I turn and walk toward the stairwell down the hall. Feet match time. Arms swing as one.

“Hey! He's not allowed out of his room.”

Nurse Larsson stands down the hall, by the nurses' station.

“Hey! Jimmy! He's not allowed…”

I turn my heads and look back. She's still, a dazed look on her face. She shudders. And then she smiles.

Walking forward, she limps.

“Where are you going, Mr. Cannon?” It's strange to hear Quincrux's inflections coming from Larsson's mouth. Her voice is high, so squeaky. I thought that was affected. I guess not.

But she doesn't sound bored. Quincrux has finally invested himself in something—catching me. But he isn't assaulting me mentally. So, what does that mean?

Now is not the time to chat with Quincrux. Now's the time to haul ass.

It's hard to get both parts of me to move in unison, but once I do, I clear the twenty yards to the stairwell fast and come to an abrupt stop. MeWeasel yanks open the door, steps through. MeShreve follows after.

I take the steps two at a time. Two flights up I have a moment of vertigo and feel a hitch in MeShreve's side. The sutures have been removed for a week, but I'm still sore and it feels like something might have ripped in there.

We keep climbing up the stairwell. At the top, the door is locked.

A sign proclaims, ROOF ACCESS FORBIDDEN. The phrase is repeated in Spanish. Thoughtful.

I shove at the push-bar release. It depresses, but the door remains unmoved.

MeShreve sits down. Leans back into the cinderblock walls. Closes his eyes. Below, the sound of feet echoes up the stairwell. Doors are opening. I transfer all my awareness into MeWeasel.

I throw myself at the door, shoulder first, once. Twice. The pain is outrageous and huge. It looks so easy on TV. I kick at the center of the door. Nothing except jarring vibrations running up and down my frame.

I'm about to throw myself against the door again when I remember.

I pull the gun from Weasel's holster. I haven't had a lot of experience with pistols, but I know most guns have a safety. I find it and flip the switch.

“Mr. Cannon!” The voice echoes up the stairwell. This is the real Quincrux speaking, not one of his drones. “This is futile. There are no exits from the roof. Either you realize this and know something I don't know—which I find highly unlikely—or I have you trapped.”

What I'm about to do, they do on TV. I hope it works here. I step back from the door, point the pistol at the point where the lock looks most likely, and fire. The result is a huge noise that nearly jars me out of Weasel's body and the flash of a ricochet.

I fire again. And again.

I throw myself at the door. It hurts like the dickens.
Sorry, Weasel, you're most likely going to lose your job and be sore as hell tomorrow. But it can't be helped.

The door and locking mechanism looks worse for wear. My ears are ringing as I bring the gun up into a firing position, take aim, and fire again. And again.

When the gun clicks, I stuff it back into the holster and kick the door. It starts to give.

I split myself into component parts and look at the close confines of the stairwell through four eyes. I can hear them coming now, closer and closer. Quincrux must have quite a few drones. Ten maybe. Twenty. All slaves of Quincrux. An assload of folks are going to lose their jobs tomorrow.

MeShreve stands next to MeWeasel, and together I throw myself at the door. Ooof. Again, two shoulders to metal.

Then I hear a bright ringing sound, and cold air rushes past me as the door swings open.

It's time to let MeWeasel go, I think. They're coming, and I don't have time to mess around being sweet. MeShreve reaches out and takes the pistol from the holster.

There's nothing like ripping part of your soul out of another person. You could say it's like ripping a bandage off a wound, but only if that wound covered both your inside and your outside, was matted with blood, and you were as hairy as a freaking bear. And you did it all in an instant.

Weasel shudders, blinks.

“I'm sorry, man.” I flip the pistol around and grip it by the barrel. “I hate to do this, but it might make tomorrow go a little easier for you.”

When I clock him across the top of his head with the pistol, he drops. It is the only thing that has worked out exactly like it happens on TV. Well, not exactly. They never show the guilt on TV.

After a moment of fumbling I manage to pop open one of the Batman-like containers on Weasel's belt and pull out a heavy, black metal object that I've seen on TV but have never really manipulated before. A magazine holding bullets. I turn the pistol, and there on the side of the grip is a small, round button. I jab at it, my chest working up and down like a bellows, and the clip pops from the bottom and clatters on the floor.

I can hear their treads on the stairs. Closer now, so much closer.

I peek through the open space between handrails, down the empty well of space. They're maybe two floors down, judging from the shadows. Walking slowly up like zombies, maybe. Shambling.

Limping
. All of them, in unison.

After a couple of tries I manage to get the magazine inserted into the pistol and then stand there, dazed for a moment, trying to figure out what comes next. I close my eyes to remember what it looked like when action heroes handled guns on television. It seems they pull on the top of the gun or something. They point it up and pull down on the slidy thing on top.

I point the gun at the ceiling, grab the top of it, and pull downward.

The sound it makes,
snick
, sounds exactly like it does on television. I think it might be ready.

Both hands on the pistol, I lift it and point it down the stairwell.

“What was that sound, Mr. Cannon? It sounded suspiciously like you reloaded the unfortunate policeman's sidearm. Is that correct?”

I say nothing and wait, sighting the bottom of the stairwell. The first of the limpers will round the corner any second now. How many bullets do these things hold, anyway?

“We are not so different, Mr. Cannon, I should think,” Quincrux says, and he chuckles. It sounds almost as if he's proud of me, glad that I fulfilled his expectations. “We are one, you and I.”

For a moment, before my eyes, there's the genial, open face of the big-bellied trucker in Chattahoochee, surprise widening his expression as we ran past him out the door into the sun-hammered parking lot. I remember Jack caught in midstride, running, his hair a wild spray about him as the air turned to flying shards of glass and a haze of blood droplets suspended in the light like silt in a glass of water.

They're almost in view, Quincrux's slaves.

I straighten my arm, sighting along the barrel. It's bizarre how heavy a gun can be.

Too heavy.

I toss down the gun. It clatters and spins even as I do, wheeling around and pushing through the door.

Out the door, into the cold and wind. The sky is lightening now, pink with wispy purple tendrils like long, gnarly fingers.

They're behind me, and I run forward, looking for any way off the roof, for Jack. For a miracle.

The roof, covered in brown and grey pea gravel, crunches under my feet, and the steam from some metal ventricle drools white stuff toward the overcast sky.

“Shreve!” Jack. I turn. He's pale and emaciated. He looks ghostly. The boy hasn't been eating.

He stands a few feet away on the gravel of the roof, next to gigantic industrial air units. The roof sprouts antennae and large, dull gray metal boxes with wires running away into other metal boxes. “I heard the shots.”

“It's Quincrux. He's coming now. Right behind—”

The door bangs open.

I see Larsson and Lacy, a doctor, and a young man in a hospital gown. More people move behind them.

“Move to the side, Shreve.” Jack straightens his arm like pointing a pistol and spreads out his fingers. Flat out, all six.

“No. You can't, Jack. They're innocent.”

His shoulders tighten as if preparing for the recoil of a gun.

“Remember Florida, Jack! The man at the hotel!” My voice is hoarse, shrill, like some unturned and ancient violin.

They stand, motionless, looking at us with the same grin spread across many faces.

“Ah, Mr. Graves. It is such a pleasure to see you again.”

I shudder at the echoing effect of all the people, all the Quincrux drones, speaking as one. Blood pours from each of their noses, dripping down their chins to splatter and spread on their shirts, their dresses, their uniforms, giving them all a gory, carnivorous look.