He closed the laptop, beginning to suspect that staring at the screen was goosing his headache. He turned the lights off and put the TV on, tried again to distract himself from the pain. Over on the desk, Alyssa Bradford’s bottle glittered and sweated, and Anne McKinney’s stood beside it, dark and dry.
Let them sit, he told himself. Let them sit there untouched. I know what’s coming for me, and I can take it. I won’t drink the water again, though.
28
JOSIAH WAS BACK IN the gray city again, that colorless empire, and the wind blew through the alleys and whistled around the old-fashioned cars that lined the empty streets. A huffing noise filled his ears and he knew before he turned to look that it was the train coming on and thought, I’ve had this dream before.
But at least the train was coming back for him. Dream or no dream, he’d lost it last time, run after it and couldn’t catch up and then found himself in that field walking hard against the dark. Yes, if the train came back around this time, he surely ought to take it.
He stood to the side and watched as it thundered toward him, stone dust rising from beneath its wheels, a funnel of black smoke pouring from the stack. All just as it had been. Good. Must be the same train.
It slowed as it passed, and again he could see the white car with the splash of red across its doors, the colors standing out so stark against all that gray. He walked toward it, eager now, as the locomotive whistle shrilled and the train lost momentum. This one was headed home. The man in the bowler hat had promised him that.
And there was the man, visible in the open boxcar door as he had been before. He wasn’t leaning out of it this time but sitting with his arms resting on raised knees and his back pressed against the door frame. He lifted his head as Josiah approached, used one finger to push the hat up on his forehead.
“’Spect you want a ride,” he said when they were close enough for words, and the smile was gone, the charm not present in his eyes this time.
Josiah said he’d be more than happy for a ride, provided they were still homeward bound. The man paused at that, considered Josiah through those dark eyes. Josiah could hear a gentle splashing from inside the car, saw drops of water coming out over the rim of the door frame and falling to the sidewalk below.
“Told you we was homeward bound last time through,” the man said. “Told you there was a need to hurry should you want a ride.”
The man seemed displeased, and that made Josiah’s stomach tremble and his skin prickle as if from the touch of something cold. He told the man that he had desired a ride, indeed, and that he’d run in pursuit of the train, run as best as his legs could do, and still not caught up.
The man listened to that, then tilted his head and spit a plume of tobacco juice toward Josiah’s feet.
“I was to tell you it’s time to get aboard now, you’d take heed?” he said.
Josiah assured him that was a fact.
“You’d also understand,” the man said, “I might be needing you for a piece of work when we get home.”
Josiah asked what that work would entail.
“A good mind and a strong back,” the man said. “And an ability to take direction. Might those be traits you possess?”
Josiah said they were, but he wasn’t overly pleased at the prospect, and it must have shown in his face.
“You don’t think that’s a fair exchange?” the man asked, his eyes wide.
Josiah didn’t answer that, and up ahead the steam whistle blew again and the engine began to chug. The man smiled at him and spread his hands.
“Well,” he said, “you know another way of getting home, you’re welcome to it.”
Josiah was unaware of another way home, and he’d already missed this train once. Time came when you had to make a sacrifice or two in the pursuit of what you desired, and right now Josiah desired a ride home. He told the man he’d get aboard.
“About time,” the man said, and then he rose to offer Josiah his hand and help him into the boxcar. When he stood, water streamed from his suit. Josiah edged closer to the train and leaned forward.
Took his hand.
Part Three.A SONG FOR THE DEAD
29
AN HOUR AFTER KELLEN dropped him off, Eric’s headache was back in full force, and he took more Excedrin and drank a few glasses of water and turned the volume on the TV louder, searching for distraction.
It didn’t work.
By eleven he had the TV off and was holding a pillow over his head.
I can beat it, he told himself. I can wait this out. I will not drink the water.
The hum soon returned to his ears, quickly built to a bell-clear ring. His mouth dried and when he blinked, it felt as if his eyelids were lined with fine grains of sand.
It’s terrible, but it’s real, too. These things are better than the alternatives. I am seeing nothing but the walls of this room and the furniture and the shadows, seeing no dead men in train cars filled with water. This I can take. This I can bear.
When the nausea caught him in full stride, he made it to the bathroom before vomiting, taking that as a comfort until the second wave hit and drove away what little strength he had left.
Let it come, he thought savagely as he lay with his cheek on the cool tile and a string of spit hanging from his lip. Let it come with the best it has, because I’m not drinking that water, won’t take a sip.
The sickness returned, even though his body was empty, and then came again, and by the end, he could no longer lift himself from the floor, racked by vicious dry heaves that seemed to spread his ribs even while squeezing his organs, the headache a crescendo and his conviction a memory.
The visions were bad, yes, but these withdrawal effects, they could kill him.
His mind went to Kellen’s suggestion, the words floating through his pain-fogged mind as he lay on the floor: Things get worse tonight, try her bottle before you go back to yours.
Anne’s bottle was on the desk, looking as normal as could be. It had been when he last saw it, at least. That had been on his way to the bathroom, and who knew how much time had passed since then. Maybe five hours, maybe fifteen minutes. He really couldn’t say.
He couldn’t stand. Managed only to get to his hands and knees, wobbling and bumping against the door frame, spit hanging from his mouth, a human pantomime of a rabid dog. He crawled forward, felt the tile change to carpet under his hands, and went left, toward the desk. He blinked hard and his vision cleared and he became aware of a glow from the top of the desk, a pale white luminescence that seemed like a guiding light.
He pulled up then and came to an abrupt stop, the rabid dog told to heel.
The light was coming from the bottle. Alyssa Bradford’s bottle. It offered a faint glow that seemed to come not from within it so much as from an electricity that clung to the outside, a sort of Saint Elmo’s fire.
Drink it.
No, no. Don’t drink it. The whole point, the reason for this absurd suffering, was to avoid taking any more of that water.
Things get worse tonight, try her bottle before yours.
Yes, her bottle. It wasn’t glowing, wasn’t covered in frost, looked entirely normal. He pulled himself over to the desk and reached for it, and when he did, his hand went to the glowing bottle first, and some part of him wanted that one desperately. He stopped himself, though, shifted his hand to Anne McKinney’s bottle, and got his fingers around it, brought it down. His breath was coming fast and uneven again, and he opened the bottle quickly and brought it to his mouth and drank.
It was hideous stuff. The sulfuric taste and smell were overpowering, and he got only two swallows down before he had to pull away. He gagged again, sagging back against the legs of the desk, and then he waited.
“Work,” he mumbled, running the tip of his tongue over lips that had gone dry and cracked. “Work.”