“It really is good to see you,” said Brendan. “Both of you.” When Simon looked over, he saw how pale Brendan’s face had become, and he felt such a great wave of pity that it pressed him down into his chair, pinning him there.
Before he could say anything, Brendan stood and went to the bar, fishing nervously inside his jeans pocket for his wallet.
“Is he okay?” Marty leaned in close. He smelled of whisky and expensive aftershave. And beneath that, a deep, musky odour that made Simon think of violence: of punches thrown and threats made, of kicked heads and split skin and spilled blood.
“I’m not sure. His kid’s ill. Last night, something strange happened. He went into some odd kind of shock, like a trance or something. Threw up and something… well, something really weird came out. A bird.”
Marty closed his eyes. “A hummingbird,” he said.
“How did you know? How the hell did you know about that?” Simon’s hand made a fist on the tabletop; his nails scratched against the damp wood.
“I don’t know. I… I just knew. When you said it, an image came into my head. Like a dream I once had but couldn’t remember until now. The hummingbirds are important — we saw them back then, too. Can you feel it?” His eyes were wide, the pupils dilated. “It’s like doors are opening inside me. Connections are being made, loose ends tying themselves together in neat little knots. Something’s happening…”
Simon shook his head. “I wish I could say the same. It’s what I wanted, why I’m here. But I don’t… I don’t feel any of that. My brain feels like when you push your knuckles into your eyes to fight sleep: that same kind of bunched-up pressure, when the darkness behind your eyelids starts to spark. That’s all. I get nothing else.”
Brendan had returned with the drinks. He set them down on the table, beer spilling over the rims. “I feel it,” he said. “Just like Marty said. Cogs are turning; they’re moving together, starting up some kind of motion. It’s slow — very, very slow — but it’s happening. What happened to Harry is only part of it. We can stop it, if we try. We can put an end to this shit.”
Simon felt empty. Why was he the only one who could not feel the energies massing, the world reconfiguring and taking on a new shape around them? It wasn’t fair; it was not right. He felt cheated, as if he were the victim of a con or a grift. He, Simon, should be the one to feel it first, the man to set off the reaction. After all, it was he who had come back here, in search of the truth, so it was only fitting that he was the one who acted as a catalyst for whatever would take place when the Three Amigos banded together for a fight.
The music on the stereo had changed to soft rock, a power ballad. The volume was still low, but one of the barmaids was singing along quietly as she worked. Simon watched her as she glided the length of the bar, picking up glasses, washing them, rubbing them dry, and mouthing the words of the song.
“Listen,” he said. “Why don’t we try something? How about this: each of us talks about what we can remember from that time, when we were held in the Needle? I know it isn’t much, but maybe if we piece our memories together we might start to see a picture forming. It might help me to feel everything you’re feeling.”
Brendan looked nervous. He was biting his lower lip. “Do you think it’s worth it? I mean, will it actually achieve anything?”
Marty leaned forward again, his big arms pressing against the table. “Is this, like, our Rashomon moment?” He smiled, shook his head. “Actually, I think it’s a good idea. If nothing else, it might prompt something, press a button in one of our heads and free up other memories, images, feelings… whatever.”
“Exactly,” said Simon. “Are you in, Brendan?”
Brendan stared at the two of them, and then finally he nodded. “Okay.” He took a drink. “So who goes first?”
There was a slight pause, a silence within the greater silence that had surrounded each of them for two decades, and then Marty spoke: “I went back there, you know. To that grove of trees. After I had my bike accident. You know about that?”
The other two nodded.
“Well,” continued Marty. “I was in a coma for a while — not long, and it wasn’t too deep. But while I was unconscious I went back there, and I stood enclosed within that grove of old oaks. I remember…” — he closed his eyes — “I remember it was night, and the stars looked miles away, too high to be much more than pinpricks. I could hear that same clicking sound — Captain Clickety’s voice — but it was too far away to scare me. In fact, now that I think about it, the clicking sound was moving away, leaving me behind, and for a moment I felt abandoned. Then the trees and the bushes began to rustle. I felt that something was stalking me, or at least watching me from the undergrowth. I think it wanted me to follow it.”
The barmaid was still singing. The bar had emptied out; there were not many people left drinking, other than the three men at the table in the window. Sunlight lanced through the glass, making a dagger shape on the table.
“It was weird,” said Marty, “but I think I was looking for that girl — the one who spoke to us when we were tied up with branches in the middle of the grove of trees. I think… I think she saved us.”
“Hailey,” said Brendan in a whisper.
“Yeah, Hailey. The hummingbird girl. That was it. I could never quite remember her name. I was looking for her. I’m not sure why, but I needed to see her, perhaps to tell her something. Maybe to thank her. Other than that, all I could remember about actually being there the first time was that it was dark, I was scared, and that fucking bird-faced cunt was tormenting us. I think he probably tortured us — abused us, or something.”
Brendan was nodding. “Yeah, yeah… that’s what I remember most: the torture.” He looked paler than ever, and his neck was scrawny, like that of a chicken. “It fucked me up, that torture. I don’t remember any specifics, but it left me with…” He glanced at the others, his eyes wet, on the verge of tears.
“Go on,” said Simon. “We won’t judge you. Not us.”
Brendan nodded. “Okay. Here goes. It left me with a kind of kink; a fetish, I suppose you’d call it. I read a lot of bondage magazines, watch the videos. I like to watch it happen to other people, to see them tied up and… and abused. Nothing bad, not real violence. Consensual stuff, light spanking, and that. I just like to watch.” The colour came back to his cheeks; he was blushing. “Jesus, it left me liking bondage…”
Marty turned to Simon. “What about you? What are your memories?”
Simon’s head dropped. He stared at a damp patch on the tabletop. “Not much. Not much at all. Just the grove of trees… and that’s about it. I remember everything before that, when we made that stupid den, and thinking we were heroes that night, tracking down some kind of beast. But afterward, when we went in there… there’s nothing. Nothing but the trees. The fucking trees.”
A silence elbowed its way between them at the table. None of them spoke for a moment or two, as if they were each afraid to shatter the quiet that had fallen across them. Background sounds swelled: the music, the chatter of the handful of people left in the bar, the barmaid’s soft, lilting voice as she continued to sing.
Then, finally, Marty spoke.
“Let me ask you something,” he said, clasping his hands together on the table in front of him. “Does this — any of this — feel weird to you, or does it feel… well, normal? Does it feel natural?”
“You mean us?” Simon glanced at the other two men, one at a time. “Meeting here again, after all this time?”
Marty nodded.
“Not weird to me,” said Brendan. “Not any more. I thought it did, at first, when it was just me and Simon. But now it’s just like you say — it feels natural, as if we never parted.”