Decimate, p.7
Decimate, page 7
But now that Vernon is alone with this incredible power . . .
That should feel good. But first, he has to make sure he’ll be able to fill himself with it a second time.
Two Dog Flats Grill has an expansive view across the sparkling waters of Saint Mary Lake to the granite spires of some of the most dramatic peaks on the eastern edge of Glacier National Park. Randy Drummond knows the view well, but today it’s a stunner. And there’s barely anyone else around to see it. Bad for them, good for Randy. It means he and James McDermott have the place mostly to themselves, save for the family on the other side of the restaurant with a baby letting out opera-level shrieks.
The place should stay this empty until evening time. Unless an early snow blows in, Going-to-the-Sun Road won’t close for another few weeks, so as soon as it starts to get a little dark, the restaurant will fill up with tourists who made the jaw-dropping trip earlier that day. A nice strong drink is the first thing most visitors need after driving the narrow two-lane road where the waist-high stone barrier between you and a ten-thousand-foot drop sometimes vanishes completely.
Randy welcomes the privacy for the last meal he’ll have with James before the man’s replacement takes over. The park ranger has served them well over the years, no doubt thanks to backpacks full of cash like the one Randy slid under the table when James arrived. This one’s bigger than most. A goodbye gift, if you will. Randy’s going to miss the old guy. He’s been easy to understand. Easy to manipulate. He’s divorced, but he’s got a mother in South Dakota with chronic diabetes and lousy insurance, so the cash has been helpful, and the questions have been few. No vices that make him unstable. Or chatty. His replacement at the Park Service is a different story.
“Missed you at the retirement party,” James says.
“Don’t remember an invite.”
“I texted you one, I think.”
Randy grunts, eats one of James’s french fries without asking for permission. They only communicate using prepaid cell phones Randy replaces twice a year. He figures the disposable little things aren’t good with attachments.
“Was it fun?” Randy asks.
“What do you think?”
“Take it the National Park Service didn’t spring for a stripper.”
“A stripper’s your idea of fun, huh?”
Randy shrugs. Wonders if he’ll miss James because he’s used to Randy’s injuries and no longer stares-without-staring at the way the facial reconstruction surgeries he underwent at Bethesda make it look as if his right eye sits too loose inside his skull.
“What do you do for fun, Randy Drummond?”
It’s a good damn question and one he’s not interested in answering. So he shrugs, as if the whole idea of fun is something nobody explained to him when he was a kid.
James’s fingers caress the longneck he ordered after the food came. It’s the first time the man’s consumed alcohol in his presence, a little tribute to the fact that their professional relationship is coming to an end as of this meal.
“Did we ever get close?” he asks. “You know, with . . .”
James gestures to the window. He’s gesturing to the park, to its vast expanse, to the mystery contained within. Contained by them.
“Three years ago,” Randy says, “a couple of big lightning storms put us in the risk window for a few weeks. That was the closest we got. But we made it through. You did your end and I did mine, and we ran a tight ship. I’m going to miss working with you.”
James nods, but it’s clear he’s not satisfied with the answer. Just like Randy is now inheriting James’s replacement, James inherited Randy a few years back. James was there the night they flew Apollo and Artemis to the hospital, still talks about the glimpse he got of the little girl in her bed, arm in a cast and scratches latticing her pale face, expression so stunned it was like she’d been dropped in from another world and couldn’t figure out this one. Working to avoid a repeat of a sight like that is probably part of what kept James so loyal over the years. The same won’t be true of the little whippersnapper that’s replacing him. Which means Randy will have to plop down more money, or just scare the shit out of the guy now and then to keep his mouth shut. He’s not above doing either.
“Whatcha thinking, James?”
“You’re never going to tell me what’s out there, are you.”
Randy could feel the question coming like a thunderstorm building over the park. But that doesn’t mean he’s got an answer for it. He breaks eye contact first, uncaps the bottle of ketchup, pours some onto the side of his bread plate. The waiter comes and asks them if they’d like anything else, and Randy shakes his head. For a long while neither man speaks. They listen to the clatter of dishes being carried to the kitchen.
Finally, Randy says, “The new guy bought a drone. Tell him to shelve it.”
“Scott? The drone’s for fun. He takes it out on his boat on Flathead.”
“He’s had the boat three years. He bought the drone three weeks ago. For cash. After my first meeting with him.”
Over the years with James, Randy has dropped subtle hints about the extent of their surveillance. But he’s never had to go full NSA on him. The same might not be true of his replacement, and Randy figures it’s better to have James relay that message first, along with all the nervous fear the man might add to it.
“I’ll say something to him,” James says quietly.
“Appreciate that.”
Randy would have preferred to end their last meal together on a more cheerful note. But his work will continue no matter who he’s dealing with, and bringing the new guy into line is priority one. Randy stands, extends his hand. James does the same. For a second, he thinks they might be able to end this warmly, which would be nice.
“You ever killed anyone, Randy Drummond?”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss my operations overseas.”
“I’m talking about Montana.”
Randy’s purposes are best served by not answering at all, so he smiles and bows his head, as if the question somehow flatters him. Then he releases James’s grip, tips his Stetson, and heads for the door.
By the time Randy gets inside the Trailhawk, he’s already seen the two missed calls from Benjamin Running Creek. They both came in during lunch, which he told the ranch crew about that morning, so whatever Ben’s calling him about must be urgent.
He locks the doors against the bracing down-mountain wind, connects the phone to the SUV’s Bluetooth speakers, and starts for the road.
Ben answers after the first ring. “Where you at?”
“Just leaving the diner. What’s up?”
“Passenger jet went down in Colorado a little while ago,” he says. “Apollo was on it.”
It takes Randy a second or two to process what Ben’s saying and what it really means. Like three cars slamming into each other at the same time, this feeling. And each one’s full of literal bullshit and babies.
“You’re kidding,” he finally says.
“I’m not,” Ben says.
It’s chilly outside, but a thread of sweat travels Randy’s spine. “Rupert?”
“He wasn’t flying west with the kid. He tailed him to JFK; then he headed to the city so he could check on the bugs we got in the apartment. He’s standing by, waiting for orders.”
“Where’s the crash site?” Randy asks.
“Remote. Mount Elbert, it looks like. They had to use military helicopters to reach it.”
“And no word of . . . anything strange?”
“Other than the bodies and the wreckage? No, but it’s soon.”
“How’s Papa Bear taking the news?” Randy asks.
“Yelling, pacing, drinking. But that’s a regular day for him. If his walls could talk, they would tell him to shut the fuck up.”
It’s a sad statement on what’s been done to the Huntley family that they’ve given the dad this shitty, childish moniker, but the kids are nicknamed after Greek gods.
“He just lost his kid. Maybe a little respect.”
“Did he, though?” Ben asks.
“All right, all hands on deck,” Randy says. “Full team meeting at the tech center in thirty. Conference Rupe in from New York. And Sean, he’s still in LA?”
“Eagle Rock. Outside Artemis’s house. The stepsister and her husband are with her. Says she’s taking it badly, drove off the road on the way home.”
“Conference him in too.”
“We knew this day would come,” Ben says.
“Yeah, but not with this many damn cameras aimed at it and military helicopters overhead. Jesus fucking Christ.”
Randy hangs up and starts in the direction of Thunder Ranch.
5
It took Claire an hour to get Melissa to leave the bedroom, an hour of explaining that she’d taken too many of her little blue friends that morning when she was in shock and that’s why she’d freaked out on the mirror. But as she’d collected the broken glass off the floor, first with a hand broom, then with bath towels to protect her skin from the larger shards, Melissa never let Claire out of her sight, as if she worried she might try to grab a shard and slash her wrists with it.
Finally, Melissa relented, but she insisted Claire leave the door open a crack, which has forced her to overhear little snippets of the phone calls her stepsister is having with airline representatives and the concerned friends and relatives who have started calling the house because Claire’s not answering her cell phone. The rare exchanges between Melissa and Phil are sounding more and more tense. Phil’s been pacing so badly Melissa asked him to sit down on more than one occasion. It’s like the crash has hit him on a deep and personal level. Which makes no sense. He’d only met Poe once, at her mother’s funeral.
Claire’s biggest fear now is that her stepsister will take it upon herself to call Dr. Fitzsimmons, and then Claire will be obligated to tell her therapist how many pills she’s swallowed since that morning. She dreads the prospect he might suggest some sort of a facility. On a temporary basis, of course. It’s always been a point of pride for her that she’s managed to hold her mental health issues in check while keeping terrifying terms like suicidal ideation and seventy-two-hour hold at bay.
Does Melissa have the man’s number? To ask would be to raise the subject, and Claire doesn’t want to do that at all.
She keeps telling herself she needs to grab a pen and paper and write out everything that’s happened to her since that morning, even if it just ends up being a laundry list of crazy she reads to Dr. Fitzsimmons at some point. But she’s paralyzed, sitting with her feet up on the bed as if a monster might grab her from underneath it if she lowers her legs to the floor. Rocking back and forth like someone already in the madhouse.
Still, she’s got no choice. Even though it will bring back memories of her attack at the whiteboard that morning, she’s got to get a pen in hand. Like her mother, she’s a list maker, someone who draws comfort from seeing complicated issues shrunk down to the level of ink and paper and bullet points. And the situation in which she currently finds herself is beyond complicated.
It’s crazy, and it has been since the crash. But that’s not completely accurate, she realizes with a jolt.
The crazy started before then, in front of the whiteboard.
Even though she told herself she wouldn’t—not today of all days—she opens the browser on her phone. Hunting for a specific piece of information gives her a sense of purpose that makes it easier to wade through headlines like ALL LIVES ABOARD ASCENT AIR FLIGHT 62 FEARED LOST and ENGINE BREAKUP OR SABOTAGE? SPECULATION ABOUNDS ABOUT CRASHED TRANSCON AIRLINER. She doesn’t allow herself to look too long at the first images of the smoking crash site taken from high in the air above.
Finally, Claire finds what she’s looking for. It confirms Melissa’s account when she got home. The distress call from the cockpit came in at 12:40 p.m. Mountain time. An hour ahead of the West Coast. The same time as her attack at the whiteboard in front of her American history class. An attack during which she’d written something against her will for the first time. A message.
love you bear.
She didn’t know a damn thing about the crash yet, so she can’t blame it on some kind of stress reaction, the way she’s been explaining the hallucinations she’s suffered since.
Crazy, she thinks. This is crazy.
In the nightstand is a notepad she used briefly during a failed attempt at dream journaling after her mother died. As soon as she takes the pen in hand, she feels it. The dizziness, the hollow feeling in her chest, the sense that all the blood in her body is moving into her right arm, toward the fingers gripping the ballpoint. The same feeling she had at school. She swings her legs to the floor and starts across the room for her purse.
Four pills, she thinks. Five, if you count the one from earlier, and it’s about to hit again. This is insane.
But before she can get to the purse or the pills inside, her arm rears up as if possessed, and suddenly the tip of the pen is wedged deep in the wall above the bed.
Jesus, she thinks, as if she’s watching it happen to someone else.
The pen in her hand is moving again, only instead of the squeak of felt on whiteboard, the bedroom fills with menacing sounds of wallpaper tearing and scratching against drywall.
Then, just like this morning, she’s instantly released from this unseen grip.
When Claire stumbles away from the wall, she’s grateful there are no staring, stunned students behind her to read this.
STOP WITH THE PILLS UR NOT NUTS BEAR
Relief. Why does she feel relief? What’s just happened is impossible, crazy. But it feels like these words didn’t come from her; they came through her. And while she was perfectly ready to believe her hallucinations in the car were the result of some psychotic break, she’s not willing to believe she has dissociative identity disorder.
The tension returns to her arm. This time it feels less like an assault and more like an inviting urge caressing her arm muscles. She doesn’t fight it, brings the pen to the notepad she just tugged from the nightstand drawer. Gives it the paper like leading a horse to water. And when she doesn’t fight the long, broad sweeps of her hand that follow, the breathlessness and the racing heart don’t return, and the whole thing feels less terrifying all of a sudden. Like surfing a wave instead of drowning. The hollow feeling in her chest is there, but it’s got a different quality now. Like excitement. Adrenaline. Like she’s taking big gulps of needed air after starving herself of oxygen.
“Claire!”
Her stepsister is behind her, approaching, drawn by the scratching sounds in the wall, no doubt. But Claire’s determined to push through, and when Melissa and Phil see what she’s doing, they stop cold on either side of her.
She has just completed a beautiful impressionistic sketch of a place that lives forever in her memories, a place she glimpsed in the full-length mirror a little while ago. Pier 39 in San Francisco, where her family spent hours during that long-ago trip. The view looks down from the second level onto the carousel she and Poe rode a dozen times, and rising from the cityscape beyond are the unmistakable outlines of Coit Tower and the Transamerica Pyramid. During their breaks from arcade games and carousel rides, she and Poe would head up to the pier’s second level and watch their parents talk on one of the benches below, seemingly happy and content in each other’s presence for the first time in a while. Claire had always believed that if not for the camping trip that happened the following year, the happiness her mother and father found in San Francisco might have sustained their marriage.
“You’re still connected.”
It’s Phil who says these words. Melissa looks as astonished by them as Claire feels.
Phil is a business school graduate and a real estate agent whose favorite movies all involve football underdogs, and who only reads books in which men in the military do consequential things. He’s never expressed a modicum of belief in religion or the paranormal in Claire’s presence, and now he’s staring at the drawing on Claire’s nightstand as if it’s evidence of something he’s secretly suspected for some time.
“Phil?” Melissa finally asks.
Phil looks at both of them, a deer caught in the headlights.
“He asked me to help him. Poe. He reached out after he got sober. He needed somebody to watch Claire.”
“Watch Claire do what?” Melissa hasn’t been this tightly coiled since Phil accidentally let the dog out during one of their movie nights and she didn’t want to blow up at him in front of the guests.
“Anything. Everything. He was . . .”
“We’re listening,” Melissa snaps.
“OK, um. The night of your date, Claire, remember? The bad one. Where you had your stomach thing.”
“It was nothing,” Melissa says. “The tests all came back negative.”
“Poe was stabbed. In the stomach. At that exact time. In New York. He almost died. It’s why he got sober. It was some sort of drug deal gone wrong. After that is when he got in touch.”
Claire stares at Phil, waiting for him to look to the floor or fidget uncomfortably or do any of a hundred things to suggest he’s made this up. He remains perfectly still.
“Why?” Claire asks. “Why did he get in touch?”
“He said when he stopped drinking and using drugs he started drawing things he’d never seen. And when he looked them up online, they were all in LA. And he’d only been here once, for the funeral. He drew your school, Claire. Has he ever been to your school? Have you sent him pictures?”
Claire figures this is a rhetorical question, but she shakes her head anyway. Because the answer is no.
“He could find pictures of the school online,” Melissa says.
“Yeah, but we started talking and that’s when we figured out—”
“Just talking?” Melissa asks.
“I didn’t have an affair with Poe. Come on.”
Melissa holds up her hands as if her husband’s secrecy has placed all options on the table.
“A few weeks after we started talking, he almost got hit by a cab as he was stepping off a curb, and at the same time, here, in LA, Claire had to pull over on the way to school because she had one of her attacks and she didn’t want to take a pill right before first period—”
