The Walking (13 page)

Miles finished his meal and walked out to the kitchen to put his plate in the sink. When he returned, Audra was just getting up from her chair next to the bed. Her face was red as she strode wordlessly out of the room.

Miles frowned. "What did you say to her, Dad?"

He was too far away to hear the answer, so he sat down in the nurse's chair and asked again. "What did you say?"

"I asked if it was true that in Japan they have vending machines that sell soiled panties," his father whispered. "I heard that they do."

Miles blinked, stunned, then laughed out loud. It had been a long time since he'd laughed, and he was probably overreacting, investing the comment with more humor than it probably warranted, but it felt good to laugh and he seemed to have no control of it anyway, and he just rode the wave and enjoyed the feeling.

His father grinned.

No, the stroke had not changed Bob's personality one bit. Miles grasped his dad's good hand, held it, squeezed. From the kitchen he heard the angry sound of a cupboard slamming.

He smiled. Taking everything into consideration, it wasn't such a bad Christmas after all.

L.A. was once again showing its true colors after its traditional New Year's false front, slumping back into smog as though the maintenance of that perfect-blue-sky ruse for even one day had zapped all its energy. The San Gabriel Mountains were entirely hidden behind a wall of white, and even the Hollywood hills were little more than a faint , outline in the haze. As usual, the weatherman on the early morning newscast had said that it was going to be "a beautiful day."

Miles walked into the break room, where Hal and Tran were comparing holidays. Tran had hosted his wife's massive Catholic family in his tiny little duplex, and the place had gotten so crowded and claustrophobic and Christian that Tran, a lax Buddhist, had spent most of Christmas day smoking in the backyard, trying to avoid his in-laws.

Hal and his wife spent the day together in their Sherman Oaks home, their son and his current girlfriend stopping by later for an uneventful visit. It was Christmas Eve day that Hal's usual series of misadventures had occurred, and Miles and Tran listened and laughed as the detective hilariously recounted how he had driven all over creation, looking for the jewelry box his wife wanted, before finally finding one at an independent discount house that he'd investigated last year for fencing stolen property. He'd bought it, intending to find another once the holidays were over and switch the two without his wife know lO3 thing; turning in the stolen one to the policnd telling them where he'd purchased it.

Tran nodded at how was your Christmas,

Miles?" if

As well as could be expected under the circumstances."

Both Tran and Hal nodded solemnly, understandingly, neither willing to chance a follow-up comment.

Miles felt awkward, and he found himself suddenly inventing a deadline that wasn't there, pretending that he needed to get back to his desk.

He sat down, shuffled through his papers, happy to have something to do, feeling far too comfortable being alone at his desk than he knew he should be.

Although Marina and her husband had gone back to Arizona, and her father refused to speak with him, Miles was still on the case, and for that he was grateful. He sorted through the files until he found theirs, withdrawing the list Liam had made up. He'd been systematically trying to locate all of the men on the list, although so far he'd found none. He'd been hoping to work with the police on this, utilize some of their resources, but to his surprise and consternation, the detective assigned to Liam's case was supremely uninterested. Miles had a few contacts downtown, among the police brass--and the firm itself had many more--and he planned to speak-to them and get the case transferred to another detective.

He spent the morning scanning phone directories and doing Internet searches. He was rewarded just after noon with the address and phone number of Hubert E Lars, now living in Palm Springs. When he attempted to call Hubert, however, a recording informed him: "This number is no longer in service, Please check the number and dial again." Miles called one more time, just to make sure he hadn't

accidentally punched in a wrong digit, but when the same recording came on the line, he hung up, feeling troubled. The image in his mind was of Hubert P. Lars lying dead on the floor of a long, low desert ranch house. He was half tempted to speed down to Palm Springs and check, but it was two hours away, and he knew his time would be much better spent trying to find addresses and phone numbers for the rest of the people on Liam's list.

He stayed late, and the sun was a smog-shrouded orange glow at the edge of the horizon where he finally pulled into his driveway. Miles grabbed the Taco Bell sack from the seat next to him, got out of the car and used his key to unlock the front door. He was greeted by darkness. And silence. No lights were on in the house, and he did not hear the everpresent sound of the television.

"Audra?" he called tentatively. "You here? Audra?"

There was no answer.

He suddenly realized why the house was silent.

His father had died. "Dad!" He dropped the sack on the coffee table and ran through the living room, his heart pounding so hard that it felt as though it was going to burst through his rib cage.

He dashed into the hall. The hall tree had been shoved in front of the door to his father's room as if to barricade it, and a love seat and chair from the back bedroom had been placed next to the hall tree to reinforce the barricade. It made no sense, but he didn't stop and try to analyze it or figure out why it had been done.

From inside the room he heard the sound of rapid footsteps that rapped against the hardwood floor. They seemed unnaturally loud in the silent house.

There was no answering reply, only the footsteps. Boot heels on wood.

Miles pushed the love seat aside, pulled the chair and hall tree away from the door. He saw a paper towel, a bottle and syringe lying between the legs of the hall tree. His father's medication, abandoned.

"Dad!" He pushed open the door.

His father was naked, wearing only cowboy boots, and walking in a circle around the periphery of the room. The nightstand was knocked over, as was a chair. Both the 'bed and the dresser had been shoved away from their usual positions against the wall and were skewed at odd angles against bunched-up sections of throw rug, creating a path next to the wall through which his father could walk. Miles saw bloody bruises on his father's thigh and midsection where he had obviously smacked against the bed and dresser, moving them not intentionally but through sheer stubborn repetition.

"Dad!" he called again.

But he did not rush forward. Something about the scene kept him back.

His father's eyes were closed, he saw. The old man's skin was bluish and pasty.

Bob walked between the dresser and the wall, toward him, past him. This close, Miles could see the utter lack of expression on his dad's face, the complete absence of any sign of life or personality.

His father was dead.

He knew it, felt it, understood it, but Bob continued walking, continued on his circular track around the edge of the room. Miles did not know what was happening or why or what to do. This was like something out of The Twilight Zone, and he stood there, stunned. He knew he should be scared, but for some reason he wasn't, and when his father came around again, Miles grabbed him around the chest, pinning the old man's arms to his sides. His father's skin felt cold and spongy, rubbery. Miles held his dad tightly, trying to keep him in place, but his father

was stronger in death than he had ever been in life, and with only a moment's delay, he broke through his son's restraint and continued his nonstop stride around the periphery of the room.

"Stop!" Miles called, but Bob gave no indication that he had heard.

The dead can't hear, Miles thought.

He hurried out of the room and back down the hall. Audra had to have reported what was happening, an ambulance was probably on its way right now, but he dialed 9-1-1 anyway and was transferred instantly from an emergency operator to a police dispatcher.

He started talking immediately, before the dispatcher had said a word:

"My name's Miles Huerdeen. I'm at 1264 Monterey Street, Los Angeles, and my dad is dead. I just came home and found him. He had a stroke and was incapacitated, but now he's walking around the bedroom, and I need someone to come over and take care of him." He was aware of how ridiculous he sounded, and he knew as soon as he said it that he should have kept that part quiet, let the paramedics find out for themselves when they arrived, but he was obviously more freaked than he'd thought, because he had a need to get the information out, he wanted to explain what was really going on.

He wanted someone else to know.

Besides, the police needed to decide how to handle his father, whether to take him to a hospital or the morgue.

The dispatcher was confused. "Your father had a stroke?

"No, he died!"

"I thought you said he was walking."

"He is!"

The voice took on a stiff authoritarian formality. "Mr. Huerdeen--"

"He's dead, I told you! And he's still walking around the room!"

"Mr. Huerdeen, I suggest you take a walk. We don't have time for these games. Thank you

"This isn't a game, goddammit!"

"Then, I suggest you take advantage of our referral service to find the mental health clinic nearest your home. I will connect you." There was an abrupt click, and then a recorded voice came on the line, informing him that if he was thinking about suicide, he should press the number one. If he was suffering from spousal abuse... He hung up the phone, chastising himself for not taking the dispatcher's name. He could not hear it from here, but in his mind he heard the sound of boot heels on wood, and for the first time the creepiness of it all hit home. Father or not, he was alone in the house with a dead mana zombie

--and his first priority was to find someone to help him do something about it. He thought for a moment, then reached for his personal phone book. He dialed his friend Ralph Barger, who worked at the county coroner's office.. Ralph would know how to handle this.

Luckily for him, Ralph was in, and Miles explained the situation as calmly and rationally as he could. His friend did not interrupt and did not treat him as though he were crazy or drunk but took him seriously and wrote down the address and promised to be there with a wagon and a couple of assistants within the half hour.

After hanging up, Miles called Graham. He might need a lawyer on this.

He had no idea what was happening here, but it was doubtlessly unprecedented, and that always meant tangling with the law. The attorney, for once, did not have to be paged but actually answered his phone,

and as soon as Miles explained the situation, he promised to be right over.

"You're not pulling my leg, are you? This is on the level?"

"On the level."

"Holy shit. I have to see this for myself."

"Then, get your ass over here."

Miles considered calling Hal, getting some of the other detectives in on this, but decided against it. At let for now.

He hung up the phone, looked around the darkened house. Where was Audra? he wondered. Had she just run off?

Or had his father killed her?

It was clear by now that she had not called the police or any authorities if she had, they had treated her information the same way they had treated his. Had she simply abandoned her post and rushed home or to the hospice agency? Or had something happened to her, and was her body still in the house? She must have been the one who had barricaded his father's door, so he most likely hadn't been able to do anything to her, but the truth was that Miles was way out of his depth here. For all he knew, his father was possessed by some malevolent spirit or demon that had also done away with the nurse.

He needed to search the house.

He was a lot more leery about leaving the living room than he had been before. Night had fallen, and though. he'd turned on a few of the lights, most of the house was still in darkness. Logically, he knew that his father had died when it was still light outside. Audra had probably taken off sometime this afternoon.

But the fact that she did not appear to have called anyone indicated the possibility that she had never left at all.

He looked down the pirtially lighted hallway at the moved barricade, feeling a chill creep up his back.

Maybe he should wait until Ralph and the coroner's men arrived.

No. If there was a chance that the nurse was still in the house, that something had happened to her and he could help, he needed to find her.

If

He took a quick peek into the kitchen, flipping on the lights. Nothing.

He went back down the hall, looked into the bathroom, the closet, his office. All empty.

The door to his father's room was still open, and he could not help looking in. Bob was still walking around the room, dead, naked, wearing cowboy boots. His father turned, and Miles saw the unseeing eyes in that unmov thing face, and he looked away, hurrying down the hall to check out the last room, his own bedroom.

He was prepared for the worst--the nurse's body, eviscerated on his bed, torn in half like Montgomery Jonesbut when he turned on the light there was nothing. Thank

God. The master bathroom too was empty, and he at least had the satisfaction of knowing that Audra had escaped the house. Leaving the lights on, walked back to his father's room, standing there for a second, watching. He could still feel the cold sponginess of that skin against his hands, and he realized that though this body was moving, animated, he did not consider it his father. It was a shell, energized but empty, and whatever spark or essence had been Bob, it was gone.

He returned to the living room, turned on the television to provide some noise and give the house some sense of life and waited. Ralph and two other men from the coroner's office arrived first, around twenty minutes later, and Graham arrived soon after. Both of his friends, and the coroner's