The thumping grew louder.
Walter stepped up into the trailer, pushing a floating stapler out of the way, and looked toward the back, toward the light and the noise. He stopped. The TV was on its side pointing at the left wall, a table overturned beside it. On the floor, bathed in the cathode glow, was a man.
He was an older black man with a round jowly face, dressed in coveralls and a knit cap. His back was arched and rigid, and he was twitching as if he’d touched a live wire, with froth bubbling between rigid lips and his eyes wide and staring. The thumping was his right heel kicking spasmodically against the linoleum, as his other limbs twitched and jerked.
“He appears to be in the midst of a grand mal seizure,” Walter told Bell over his shoulder. One of the man’s flailing hands was encircled by an engraved medical alert bracelet featuring the Hippocratic snake and staff, and the word EPILEPTIC in large red letters.
Bell squeezed in on his left.
“Do you think his epilepsy might have been triggered by our... event?”
“Undoubtedly,” Walter said, nodding. “And the electrical storm going on in his head is manifesting in the physical world as that psychic cyclone outside.” He started through the debris, ducking through flocks of flapping paper and slowly spinning pens. “But a seizure usually lasts less than a minute. No more than two. We saw that car flatten the fence at least four minutes ago.”
“A feedback loop,” Bell offered. “The psychic pulse triggered the fit which triggered a larger psychic burst which in turn...”
Walter knelt by the man.
“What can we do for him?” he asked.
Bell knelt beside Walter.
“Nothing,” Bell said. “Except maybe turn him on his side so he doesn’t choke on all that drool, and make sure he’s not going to bang his head on anything.”
“Ah, yes. We can do that. Although...” Walter looked up at Bell, uneasy. “I’m concerned about what happens when he comes out of it. Do the things in the air settle gently to the ground, or do they drop all at once? There could be a lot of damage. Someone could get hurt.”
“Not much we can do about that, either,” Bell replied.
* * *
Allan stepped under a floating boat hull and into the clearer air around the trailer. Only a few smaller things—wrenches, pipe fittings, and beer cans—drifted there. He glanced behind as the sound of sirens grew louder. It seemed so unfair that capricious circumstance would force his hand like this, but it was becoming increasingly clear that it would be best to take out the Reiden Lake boys right now.
They were too dangerous and could not be allowed to live. All the other connections to his old life, his old world, had been severed, all except these two. With them gone, the final tie would be cut, and he would be free.
But all the arbitrary killings were wearing on him, making him feel like a butcher, rather than an artist. This was not his destiny, not who he was meant to be.
Should he kill them? Or not?
He crept closer to the trailer door.
* * *
Walter put his hands on the man’s shoulder and hip, and pushed to rock him over onto his side. His body was so rigid that it was easier than he expected, and the man nearly flopped face first onto the floor. Walter grabbed awkwardly at him to save his teeth, and touched his hand—flesh to flesh.
All at once every floating object in the trailer dropped straight to the ground.
Bell gasped, and began to speak.
He was drowned out by a thunderous crash that shook the trailer. Walter thought he heard someone outside let out a stifled cry, but he couldn’t be sure. A bookshelf full of ring binders tipped forward and dumped its load on him, and the battering he received made every other sensation take a back seat.
After a few seconds of coughing and brushing off and sitting up, Bell squinted around, waving at the clouds of dust.
“So much for gently lowering anything to the ground.”
Walter looked toward the door.
“I thought I heard someone outside,” he said. “We should check. They might be...”
He cut off as the sirens they had been hearing in the background suddenly pushed to the foreground. They could see flashing red and blue lights through the windows of the trailer, and heard the slamming of doors.
“Or perhaps...”
“Wha... what the hell was that?”
They both looked down. The confused watchman was looking up at them, an expression on his face that was equal parts fear and embarrassment.
“I had another one of my fits again,” he said. “Didn’t I?”
Bell nodded, then shot another glance at the window.
“Er, yes, sir,” Walter said. “I’m afraid so. But you’re fine now, and there is an ambulance here to help you. We’ll just go let them know where you are.”
“Yes,” Bell said, edging toward the door. “We’ll send them your way.” He turned. “Come on, Walter.”
Walter didn’t want to leave the man alone. In fact, he wanted to question him, ask him about the experience. But trying to give the police a rational sounding explanation for what had happened here would be an exercise in futility. So he gave a guilty salute to the befuddled watchman, then edged around him.
“Right behind you,” he called after his friend.
* * *
Allan hurried away down the street, police sirens bouncing off the surrounding walls and painting the night in a wash of blue and red. He had been less than three feet from the trailer door and about to reach for the knob when all of the mysteriously suspended objects around him had suddenly lost their animation and dropped to the ground.
A large jagged chunk of rusty metal the size of a washing machine had dropped down an inch from his toes. So close that he could feel the wind of its passage. If he’d been reaching for the knob, his right arm would have been crushed, broken, or perhaps even severed.
He got the message. He was being impulsive, over-eager. He had been thinking of deviating from the plan. And look where that kind of thinking got him.
He would still have his special moment with those two, and with Miss Nina Sharp, as long as he stuck to the plan. He just needed to be patient. Let them make plans of their own. Watch it all play out, and act accordingly.
25
They got back to Nina’s house just as the sun was coming up. Pregnant Abby was curled up on a couch, dozing with Cat-Mandu. Looking down at her, Walter felt a pang of guilt for involving the father of her child in all this madness.
The three of them dragged themselves up the stairs to Nina’s room, mentally and physically exhausted.
“So what’s our next move?” Nina asked.
“Next move?” Walter ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t know about you, but my next move is to collapse from exhaustion.”
“But what I want to know,” Bell said, “is how did he find us?”
Walter shuddered. He’d been thinking the same thing, and wasn’t happy with the conclusions he’d come to.
“There’s been something bothering me since last night,” Walter said. “But you know how bad my memory is, so I just told myself I was wrong.”
“What?” Bell asked.
“Well,” Walter said, “I’m pretty sure we never told Iverson about Reiden Lake.”
Bell got it. His eyes went wide.
“The classified ad,” he said.
“It said ‘regarding events at Reiden Lake,’ right?” Walter asked. “But we never told Iverson, or any other authorities about where the initial trip took place. There’s only one other person who knows that.”