MILES: Chapter Five, pt. 6

Something caught his attention; he realized the bartender was talking about him to the girls down the bar. He looked up and half-smiled.

“I was just saying I don’t usually see you during the week,” said the bartender, and the dark-skinned girl – maybe she was Pakistani or Indian or something – smiled for him, a wide smile of perfectly white teeth. He smiled back, though the effort seemed insincere.

“Came in unexpected-like,” he replied, trying to conceal how intoxicated he was feeling. “Family business.”

“How’s your mom?” asked the bartender, expecting another bizarre tale. Before she was home ridden, Franklin’s mother was prone to wander away from the minimum-security wing of the asylum whenever someone failed to keep a watchful eye, and Franklin loved to weave a good yarn. “She’s hilarious. Listen to this guy.”

Franklin’s face fell. “She’s dead, mate,” he said. “The wake’s tomorrow.”

The bartender froze and stared at Franklin, waiting for a punch line that didn’t come. Then an uncomfortable look a realization crossed his face. “Oh Jesus, Frank. I’m so sorry.”

The girls stared at the bartender and the Englishman with open astonishment, not entirely sure how to react. The shorter, dark-skinned one broke into mortified laughter until her blonde friend elbowed her, and she fell awkwardly silent. Both girls gazed intently at their drinks, unable to meet anyone’s eyes.

“S’Alright, mate,” said Franklin, ignoring the outburst. “It ‘appens to the best. Things ‘ave jus’ been… complicated.”

“When, uh…” the bartender stammered. He fumbled with how to end his question, and finally gave up, repeating what he’d started to say. “When?”

“Monday night. I flew in two weeks ago,” Franklin said. “Got to see her before the end, you know. Guess she was waiting for me or… somefing.”

“Christ, Franklin,” said the bartender, trying to find the words. “How you holding up?”

Franklin was starting to feel a little uncomfortable with all the attention. His trip to the pub had been planned as an escape, but now he was disoriented and drunk and desperately wanted to disappear, to lie down and sleep until it was all over. He paused a moment before answering, trying to find the balance between honesty and tact. The girls nearby were clearly trying not to openly stare, and quickly looked elsewhere when Franklin cast a glance their way.

“I’ll be alright, mate. You know, someday.” The bartender nodded, his attention completely withdrawn from the young women nearby, who Franklin noticed were trying hard to disappear themselves. “Look, um… should be prolly be making my way.” He fumbled for his wallet, but the bartender stopped him with a dismissive wave.

“Tonight’s on me,” he said offering a handshake instead. Franklin accepted, grateful that his unwieldy hands were still steady after all the alcohol.

“Thanks.” Franklin stood slowly, glad he had walked instead of driving. “See you again.”

He felt their eyes follow him as he left, the sullen face of the bartender and the terrified faces of the two pretty girls.

Outside, the cold surprised him. He tugged his heavy coat around him as a gust of wind whipped past; the sky had turned as ominous grey and clouds were bearing down. The first few droplets of rain started to fall, and Franklin shuddered – not because of the cold and wet, but because for the first time he realized that life as he knew it had dropped out from under him, and it would be a long while before he stopped falling.

The halogen streetlights above him shimmered, and threatened to go out, and as Franklin trudged out into the street he noticed a beautiful blue convertible pull into the parking lot behind him. Franklin could not claim to be an expert on classic cars, but the vehicle was stunning nonetheless. And, Franklin noticed, behind the wheel was a strikingly beautiful woman as well. Long dark hair, big brown eyes. He couldn’t make out the other passenger. Franklin allowed himself a brief smile, and disappeared into the night.

MILES: Chapter Five, pt. 5

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V

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“Funny fing about this state,” Franklin said to no one in particular. The bartender looked up with vague disinterest. “The funny fing is that iss chopped right in two.” He waved his arms about to illustrate how someone might chop a state in half, specifically a state the size of Colorado. “Like they took a big bloody Rototiller to ‘alf the state, dug it all up, and never came back to finish the job.”

In his intoxication his accent was near indecipherable, but he continued speaking with the enthusiasm of someone addressing a large crowd. “I mean, iss got all these mountains, roight, but when I first come to Denver, an’ I step offa the plane, I swear could jump up on the back of a pickup and stare across the whole fing, straight down into – wassit – New Mexico or somefing.”

“Another beer, then?” said the bartender, already pouring a fresh glass, the brown foam cascading down the heavy, dark stout. Franklin drank exclusively Guinness, as Englishmen were prone to, and was no stranger to consuming copious amounts of alcohol. But the burly Englishman, who frequented the pub with longwinded and often hilarious stories of his homeland, his marriage or his mentally unstable mother, amused the bartender, and anyone else sitting within earshot.

Their attention was quickly drawn to the entryway where two lovely young women had just walked in and were approaching the bar. Franklin graciously accepted the fresh glass and winked at the bartender with a not-particularly-subtle nod to the women.

“Noice night for it,” said Franklin. “Enjoying the scenery, I mean.”

The two girls ordered Manhattans and chatted gaily with the bartender. Franklin ignored them, his attention focused on recent events rather than the rather bizarre game of cat-and-mouse being played by the two girls. Franklin was vaguely aware of the bartender flirting with the young women, which they clearly enjoyed. Whenever he would step away though, the shorter one with dark skin and dark hair would giggle and nudge her taller blonde friend, who apparently was attracted to the bartender, but was too shy, and quickly growing too drunk, to articulate her interest.

Franklin drank his Guinness and ordered a fourth, drinking it more slowly this time. The alcohol was starting to affect his mood, to take him back into recent memory rather than allow him to forget. The dark stout weighed heavily in his stomach, and he was starting to regret consuming so much.

Speaking with the funeral home had been surprisingly easy; Franklin found if he pretended he was handling this for someone else, it was much easier to stomach. He arranged for an old family friend to handle the phone calls; their family doctor had also volunteered to help with paperwork and logistical needs. There were still more plans to be made, though, and more complicated arrangements to handle; he knew his week would not be free of painful tedium. The will and the estate – those he knew would be the most difficult. Gathering his mother’s things. Selling the house. He knew there was a life insurance policy waiting for him – he had asked her not to take one out but she had insisted – so he assumed there was some money, and more paperwork. Before her illness became unmanageable she had married well, and when her husband left her a widow, she found she could survive for a very long time without work. When she needed hospitalization, it fell on his shoulders to arrange things then. He had a sister – Beverly – back home; she had moved to Yorkshire when she married and started a family. They had lost touch when he’d moved stateside to take care of their mum. He was the only family his mother had, really – it was unlikely his sister would fly in for the funeral. The phone call had been awkward enough. Beverly seemed to barely care – she seemed distant and detached; her family in England was her real family now. Franklin hung up the phone feeling more alone than he had before.

MILES: Chapter Five, pt. 4

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I V

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The phone rang again. Melody tried to ignore it; she pushed the pillow over her ears and rolled over but the sound was insistent. Finally, the machine took it, and she heard her own grainy and distant voice say, “I’m not home. Please leave a message,” followed by the traditional sound.

There was an eerie silence, then the caller hung up. Melody lifted her head from the pillow in surprise, blinked heavily at the now pulsing red light, and nearly jumped out of her skin when the phone began to ring again.

She stared at it now, as it rang and rang, the body of the telephone vibrating slightly as the hammer rattled the bell inside. She reached for the handset but stopped midair, uncertain now.

The machine took the call, and she heard her prerecorded message again. After the shrill sound there was silence again, followed by a sharp breath that left Melody’s blood cold. Then a voice, calm and poisonous.

“Now this is just silly, Melody. Pick up the phone. I know you’re there.”

The faucet in Melody’s arteries turned from cold to hot, she felt her face flush with rage. She grabbed the handset.

“Whatthefuckdoyouwant?!” she said in a single breath. Then after a pause, “You know what? I don’t even care. Don’t call here again.”

She had just about hung up the phone when Mark’s voice stopped her.

“Wait,” he said. “There’s no reason for this. Just listen.”

She paused, and brought the phone back to her ear.

“I’m going home, Melody. And I’m inviting you to join me.”

Her head began to pound again. Talking to Mark was like talking to a machine – he’d say what he wanted to say regardless of who was listening, and her only options were to hear him out or shut him off. Morbid curiosity kept her on the phone, at least that’s what she told herself, but some part of her knew that her curiosity was laced with a certain sense of responsibility as well.

“I thought you said you’d met somebody. Did she leave you al–”

“I did meet someone,” he interrupted. “He’s amazing. I’d like for you to meet him.”

Silence, while Melody tried to process this last datum. When in doubt, substitute with sarcasm.

“Well, I’m really sorry I can’t make it to the wedding, but I really do wish the best for you both.” Her voice was thick and syrupy, and she allowed herself half a hope that he’d take a hint and leave her alone, but she knew well enough that Mark understood subtlety about as well as he understood piloting a spaceship.

“We’re going to change the world, Melody. I really wish you could be a part of this, but if the distance between us is really that…” he was choosing his words carefully. “…insurmountable, then I guess you’ll be… left behind. This is the last time I’ll call you, Melody. But you’ll know how to find me if you experience a sudden change in heart. Au Revoir.”

He hung up. Melody’s mouth was suddenly dry. Her phone had hummed, chirped, and finally a woman’s voice was telling her that if she’d ‘like to make a call, please hang up and try again’ before it occurred to her to put the handset back in the cradle. It was then she realized she was shaking. She closed her eyes. There was a shudder along the white corridor; something was happening out there, and Melody was scared.

MILES: Chapter Five, pt. 3

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I I I

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The worst had come and gone, and Franklin was alone. Two weeks he’d stayed in the hospital, going home only for the occasional shower – and subsequent marathon of drinking where he woke on the couch with a terrible headache, wishing to a God he didn’t believe in that he was someone else with an entirely different set of problems.

Then his mother had died, as every doctor had predicted she would, with her withered hand in his, her morphine drip cranked so high she barely knew who he was.

“Promises,” she’d whispered, in a surprising moment of cognizance. “There are so many promises we never keep. I promised I’d see him again, before the end.” Who she’d promised to see, Franklin did not know. But that was two days earlier, and she’d been barely able to mouth Franklin’s name, let alone form complete sentences, in the time that remained.

His mother had died as he sat in silence. A shiver trembled through her; a shiver that started in her body and traveled down her arm and up into Franklin’s, trapping itself somewhere in his spine where it vibrated and hummed, slowly sucking the warmth from his body. She gasped, turned to look at him – her eyes unable to focus – and her hand gently squeezed his. Then she was still, her grip relaxed, and Franklin sat alone and cold in the dim hospital room, sensations and feelings creeping up on his conscious mind and quickly fleeing, leaving him empty and unsteady.

The worst had come and gone, yet the worse was yet to come. The great weight had not lifted from him, but it had shifted. A lifetime of illness had come to an end, but Franklin felt no relief – in fact, he felt very little at all. The numb detachment had not come all at once, but in pieces; over next few days, it seemed, he had been drifting away from himself, like a sandcastle under the slowly lapping tide. Bits and pieces fell away, undetected, until he realized one day there was nothing left.

He thought he should miss his mother, he was sure he should worry for his children, he was certain there was a terrible, overwhelming sense of grief he should be wallowing in, but nothing came.

The funeral arrangement had been made – Franklin politely aloof throughout the process. Phone calls had been made, checks had been written. Franklin McGaffy would bury his mother in two days, but in the meantime he felt nothing at all. On his answering machine, messages were left asking about work; he should take all the time he needed, they said, but did he know when he’d be back? There were a few messages of consolation, of which he ignored. Franklin allowed himself few close friends, but many acquaintances, but the voices on the machine sounded foreign and insincere. He sat in silence, soaking in the Gin and Vodka and whatever else was handy, half-heartedly wondering if there was something else he should be feeling. The phone began to ring, and so he unplugged it, preferring the absence of sound to any more pity or consolation.

His mother, though, she had been a social woman and, in a past life, an actress of some notoriety. The wake he did not look forward to, but it was impending and he was vaguely aware of the headache that would become. A small army would descend on his home in the morning: the catering and the church group and the funeral staff – Franklin was more than happy to delegate the entire event to other people. If he could, he would have skipped the whole ordeal. A six-pack and a drive to the country sounded like a much more appealing use of his time. Instead, he expected a day of unwanted socializing; his house would full of producers long since put to pasture, actors no one had ever heard of.

He had tried calling his sister the day before, but she was no longer interested. Beverly had a new family, and new responsibilities, and the death of a parent she hadn’t spoken to in nearly a decade was not a concern. The conversation was brief and mildly uncomfortable; Beverly seemed tolerant and patient and wholly unattached.

“Promises,” she had said.

“Promises.”

Franklin was tired, and a little drunk, but mostly he was restless. The answering machine was quickly filling up with messages for him to ignore; his apartment was bleak and uninviting. Plus, he was hungry, and the cupboards were more than bare, they were dusty and abandoned.

Franklin stood up, capped the gin he’d been nursing, and walked to the pub.

MILES: Chapter Five, pt. 2

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I I

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“This came for you,” the woman’s voice said. Erik Strand looked up, surprised. Molly Pritcher – daytime security officer – towered over him. She was an awkwardly shaped woman in her forties, with short cropped red hair, and her blue SecureTech uniform fit her strangely: too big in places and uncomfortably snug in others. She held a large manila envelope in her hands. “I signed for it. I was just punching off – thought I’d bring it over in person.”

Erik stared at her like he hadn’t understood a word she’d spoken. She gestured with the envelope again, thrusting it at him. “Hello? Ground Control to Space Station Strand? This just arrived. It’s got your name on it.”

He took the envelope without saying a word, staring up at her with a bewildered look on his face.

“No need to thank me,” she said as she turned with a huff. She walked with a slight limp and her Billy-Club thwapped gently against her thigh with each step. “Probably your subscription to Wallflowers Monthly. Probably an invitation to the Agoraphobics annual barbecue in there as well.”

He eyed the manila envelope suspiciously; he wasn’t expecting any mail. There was no name of the sender, and the return address was a post office box he didn’t recognize.

He opened the envelope with his small letter opener and reached inside. A stack of file folders fell out, scattering across his desk. The folders looked like crime scene files: 8x10 glossy photos and carbon copies of official documents. Depositions. Witness statements. Blood, and an awful lot of it, permeated the photos. Someone was tracking a murderer. A white mailing envelope, sealed. Erik peeled it open. Plane tickets, in his name, to Denver – his hometown. Erik’s pulse quickened. This had grown from curious to insidious. Someone wanted him back in Colorado.

Erik froze. Amongst the stack of folders and documents, a series of black & whites stood out among the rest. Erik was staring at himself – photos of himself – outside the watchtower pub, and several of him walking up the steps to his apartment.

He sat in stunned silence. Inside were crime scene photographs and official police documents illustrating a series of ritualistic murders, all similar in nature. All horribly familiar. The dates on the documents were recent, but there was no doubt that Erik recognized the handiwork.

* * * * *

He knocked on the office door of James Mathus – a formality, as the door was already open – and James gestured for him to come inside.

“This just came in the mail,” he said, holding a stack of files in his arms. “Addressed to me personally. Someone wanted me to see these.”

“Who?” asked James.

“Don’t know,” said Erik. “Just look.”

He handed James the folder he’d just received. Erik had left the tickets and the photos of himself on his desk; he was uncomfortable with the sense of familiarity the anonymous sender obviously had with him, and he wanted to wait before sharing that with his supervisor. James opened it slowly and his eyes grew wide as the photos spilled out. He rifled through the documents quickly, his lips pursed, glancing over the Police Reports, news clippings.

“What do these–” James began, but Erik handed him another folder, clearly labeled from the archives files. The crime scene photos were nearly identical; men and women had been ritualistically murdered, with strange decorations carved into their bodies – apparently while they were still alive. James quickly counted the cases in his head – over a dozen homicides, all with the same method of killing.

James recognized the name on the folder: Cain, Lucius.

“That case was closed almost a decade ago,” James said. “Lucius Cain is dead. His body was identified in the wreckage.”

Erik nodded, his face stoic. James sat in silence a moment; Erik shifted his weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other.

“I want to fly to Denver,” said Erik. “Observational status only. I need to know who’s doing this.”

James pondered this, and then with a look of tired resignation he nodded.

“I’m going with you,” he said.

MILES: Chapter Five, pt. 1

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I

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FRANKLIN MCGAFFY had been drinking since early afternoon, and he had no intention of stopping anytime in the foreseeable future. He had booked an emergency flight for the morning, but he hated flying and had no desire to remain sober for that either. There were few things in life worth experiencing sober.

Franklin sat in an overstuffed recliner, his immense frame taking up most of the chair, glass half full of ice in his hands and a near-empty bottle of Beefeater Gin on the table next to him. He looked around his sparse hotel room. His life, for the past few weeks, had been small enough to pack in a suitcase, and for a while that had suited him just fine. He traveled for weeks at a time, and a few days a month he’d come home to his two sons, fight with his ex-wife, and then head back out on the road.

How many moments of his life, he wondered, had been spent waiting for the next? Each day he traveled was a day he spent waiting to go home to his children, and each day he spent home he wished he were back on the road. He loved his kids – god, he loved his kids – but when he was at home in his small and terrifyingly messy apartment or out fighting with his ex he wished he were somewhere, anywhere else. Franklin was struck by a near paralyzing fear that somehow he was a dreadful failure just waiting to occur – that somehow the responsibility for other living creatures would prove to be too much, that he would realize with unnerving certainty that he was never designed to be a parent, and his children would turn out far too much like he had: directionless, listless, and wholly unhappy. Franklin was jovial, charming and wild, which earned him more than a few friends, and a few lovers, at that – but knew far too well how quickly he became the drunken buffoon, the caricature of himself, and he knew as well how much of his light-hearted nature was an act, a method of coping, a means to disguise the hollow, unfulfilled feeling that hung about him like stale air in a deserted house. And so he maintained his routine, and kept with a dissatisfying career, because the sheer impulsive notion of optimism unvaryingly led to failure. Franklin was far too familiar with feelings of failure, and the unfathomable depths of depression that followed. Traveling was a way of not existing, of stepping outside of normal responsibility. Fly. Sleep. Work. Drink. Repeat.

He poured himself another glass, the clear liquid popping and sparkling over the ice cubes and reflecting against the bright light of the evening sun – a contrast to his dark and somber mood. He squinted into the window; evening had fallen quickly as he sat alone, drinking and mumbling to himself. He reached out and snapped shut the blinds; darkness quickly swept across the room.

The phone call had come that afternoon. His doctor – his family’s doctor – had called his hotel while he was out. There was a message at the front desk: “Please call immediately. Your mother is unwell.”

Unwell was relative, he thought. She’d been fighting cancer for a year now; she’d been fighting mental illness for thirty years. Well, fighting was relative too, he supposed. More like drifting listlessly along, hoping for the best.

But she’d taken a turn for the worst, and there was little more anyone could do.

He lifted the glass to his lips and swallowed another large mouthful.

He was going home.