John C. Reilly. The ginger bastard with his buzz cut and retarded grin.
John C. Reilly. The ginger bastard with his tall and muscular body and square jaw and piercing, bright green eyes.
In Caleb’s nightmare he was back in Iraq and Reilly was with him, pretending that his fingers were guns and shooting at him. Shooting at Caleb with that dumb grin and those piercing green eyes.
Reilly’s eyes became bullets Caleb couldn’t dodge and they shot him through the throat and through the chest. Gurgling up his own blood, Caleb fell to the ground, face-first into Iraq’s warm desert sand.
Then Reilly’s shadow lingered over Caleb’s lifeless body and picked him up from the ground. With one quick movement Caleb was thrown into the air and broke through the atmosphere. He saw the globe from outer space and he could count the stars and the sun felt hot on his skin.
John C. Reilly became gravity and pulled him back down. Down into America. Down into his mother’s small apartment where she was dying of cancer.
John C. Reilly was fucking his mother. Plowing her hard and making her scream sounds Caleb had never heard come from a woman before. He wanted to stop it but Reilly was a giant that stood eight feet tall and he was just a little boy, with little-boy arms and little-boy shoulders.
There was nothing he could do as the ginger giant unhinged his jaw like a snake and shoved his mother all the way inside his mouth. Tearing off her skin and crunching her bones with his great, white teeth. Consuming her.
Caleb knew then that Reilly was the cancer and he could never beat it.
A soft hand reached for his own and when Caleb looked to his right he found Jane Elring looking back up at him. Her dark eyes piercing his soul, the pain relieved by one of her delicate smiles.
He heard her say, “It’s okay, Caleb. Time for you to wake up now.”
Caleb opened his eyes and felt his back leaning against the uncomfortable airplane seat. His forehead was sweaty and his breathing heavier than he liked it to be. To his right sat his client staring out of the window, seemingly hypnotized by the gentle rhythm of the plane.
He had fallen asleep, Caleb thought bitterly. Some bodyguard he was. This really couldn’t happen anymore.
Jane pulled her head away from the window and looked up at Caleb. “You’re awake! Sounded like you had it pretty rough there for a while.”
Rough. Yeah, Caleb thought to himself, rough was an accurate description.
“I thought about waking you. But you looked so damn tired I figured I’d better let you be. Need you sharp when we get to Alabama, though.”
Caleb realized she’d mentioned his failure to him in the kindest possible way and he resented that it brought him some relief.
To ignore his own feelings he asked, “How much longer until we get there?”
“About thirty minutes, give or take.”
“And then another hour by bus, right?”
“Yep. Our contact will meet us at the station in Brettville.”
“Right. You worked with this Agent Bradford before?”
Jane paused only briefly, but long enough for her eyes to betray an uneasiness to her bodyguard. “Special Agent Bradford, yeah. He’s my regular.”
Caleb made a mental note. Keep an eye on Special Agent Bradford.
Special Agent Bradford stood at the bus station with his phone planted angrily against his ear. He didn’t have time for this shit.
“Listen, Becky! She’s not going to that damn party!”
“Well, I don’t think that one party….”
“Becky… last time we let her go to a party she came home shitfaced drunk! I’m a government official, for fuck’s sake, I can’t have that happening!”
“But if we don’t let her learn about these things—”
“She can learn about them when I say she’s ready to learn about them. Don’t you forget, Becky, my word is law in that house even when I’m gone!” There was a long pause before Agent Bradford spoke again. “You can tell her I said she can’t go. We’ll talk about it more when I get back home.”
“Okay… call me tonight?”
“Of course.”
“Okay. Love you!”
Agent Bradford hung up.
With a deep sigh, he put the phone in his pocket.
Through the frustration it was sometimes hard to remember why he loved his wife. He hated her weakness with the kids. But then, he realized, weakness was part of what made a woman. It was his responsibility to be strict and maintain the structure his family needed. He couldn’t depend on his wife for that.
He looked at his watch and noticed it was almost noon. She’d be here in fifteen minutes or so.
His colleague had confirmed him that she’d gotten on the airplane with her new bodyguard, so it was only a matter of time before he was confronted with the reality of her deep, dark eyes.
Agent Bradford felt nervous and he hated it. Hated how Jane Elring made him feel. How those dark eyes and that creepy smile mixed into some kind of disfigured hybrid of familiarity and dread. The purity her blonde hair suggested was, Agent Bradford knew, a horribly tasteless joke. He hated how Jane Elring made him feel, so he hated Jane Elring.
Instinctively his hand reached into his pocket and found the little black box with the button on it.
The button. If all else failed, if he lost control over the situation, he could always press the button. Though, in his three years working with her, it had never come to that.
Agent Bradford knew that it was only a matter of time. The girl was a ticking time bomb. He couldn’t depend on a woman to maintain a steady level of self-control.
Brettville’s bus station stood slightly east off the main road that split the town in two. It was only a short walk away from the town’s center and Agent Bradford could smell the cooking coming from Juan’s Mexican Grill across the street.
South of the town’s center stood Brooks Mechanical. Beyond that there were only fields and farmlands touching Brettville’s southern borders.
To the west, east, and north the thick growth of pines surrounded the town, reaching far into the sky, standing as stalwart watchmen over the wellbeing of the townsfolk. As if shielding the people of Brettville against an unspeakable terror that roamed beyond the town’s borders.
As far as towns went, Agent Bradford thought, this place wasn’t that bad. Of course, it did have a lot of black people.
The bus pulled in at twenty past noon and Agent Bradford stood with some measure of anticipation. The doors hissed open and the randoms started pouring out.
Jane Elring was one of the last to leave the bus, followed by a black man that carried the luggage. So this was her supposed bodyguard?
Agent Bradford quickly analyzed the man. He saw a gut, man boobs and a wattle of fat weighing down his chin.
Yet Agent Bradford was experienced enough to look beyond first appearances. The man’s eyes were sharp and astutely aware, his shoulders strong and rounded, and even with all the fat his posture was excellent.
Ex-military, maybe? Agent Bradford knew that this man could have done real damage in his prime. Now? Better to be careful, he decided.
Agent Bradford noticed that Jane noticed him and braced himself as the odd couple walked over to him. He tried to silence his nerves but found that he couldn’t. Her mere presence felt like an understated threat to his wellbeing.
Still, he extended his hand as Jane came within reach and they shook on their greeting, a formality he couldn’t abandon. Her delicate hands were warm and soft, in strong contrast with what he knew she really was.
Agent Bradford repeated this forced formality with the black man that stood next to her. “I’m Special Agent Bradford.”