A Man Overboard (8 page)

He left the house, completely unsure of what to do next, and walked to his car. This time, he skirted the other side of the property, following the garage around to the driveway. As he came to the corner of the garage, where the white stucco met the blacktop in front and grass on the side, he found a couple of signs leaning against the wall. There were only a few things they could be: a political endorsement (which Viktoriya would never allow), credit for some kind of service done on her property, or…

He picked one up and turned it over, coming face to face with the big, bold letters.

FOR SALE BY OWNER.

Jack’s sense of the world continued to dive in an irrecoverable tailspin, and he wondered how long the dream would play out, what ludicrous scene the infamous Sandman could have lined up for him next. He double-checked the address on the mailbox just to make sure he had broken into the right house.

An insatiable need to find Joseph exploded in his chest, filling him with a suffocating panic he had no way of repelling.

13

As twilight handed the sky over to night, Jack sat behind the wheel, two hands handling it so as to keep the car between the solid white lines—though barely conscious of the effort it took to do so. His mind was elsewhere, the nonsensical puzzle pieces of the last few days arguing on behalf of more eccentric theories that might, perhaps, better explain the recent changes in his life.

One of them was the “dream theory.” Dream Theory insisted he was still asleep, either still on the cruise ship with Stacey naked beside him or even so far back as the night before they left for Miami, everything about the trip a dream. The problem with that theory, however, was that it disappeared into a sea of subjectivity so unsteady that there was no real way to tell how
much
of his past could be part of the dream. Maybe his whole marriage had been a concoction mixed by REM sleep. Maybe he was still in college, and this Stacey girl didn’t even exist outside of his imagination…a drug-induced coma after an accident he couldn’t remember, or a head injury from a falling air-conditioning unit sustained during his walk to work. Maybe his entire
life
was a dream, and like so many science-fiction stories, he was actually hooked up to machines that were filling his mind with a false reality while harvesting his natural energy for the psychic aliens now ruling earth. Or maybe Mr. Sandman had grown bored of bestowing pleasant dreams on children and had ventured into a new market of darkness that now exploited adults. For Hans Christian Anderson’s 1841 portrayal of the folk tale—Ole-Luk-Oie sprinkling magic dust on children’s eyes to either give them pleasant dreams for good behavior or no dreams for bad behavior—was a far cry from this torment. Though E.T.A. Hoffman’s darker, 1816 portrayal of the Sandman might be worth consideration.

And yet it
was
Ole-Luk-Oie—who actually turned out to be Morpheus, the Greek dream god—that helped transition from the “dream theory” to another one, a piece of text stepping forth from one of memory’s forgotten cells.

I will show you my brother. He is also called Ole-Luk-Oie but he never visits anyone but once, and when he does come, he takes him away on his horse, and tells him stories as they ride along. He knows only two stories.

One of these is so wonderfully beautiful, that no one in the world can imagine anything at all like it; but the other is just as ugly and frightful, so that it would be impossible to describe it…

There now, you can see my brother, the other Ole-Luk-Oie; he is also called Death.

That Jack could reel any of the words out from the sediment lying at the bottom of whatever lost brain lake they’d settled in gave him pause. It didn’t seem plausible that that should have happened, and it made him pause at theory number two—the theory that Sandman’s brother was suggesting. The one lobbing his mind back and forth like it was a birdie fluttering over the net of truth. The one that proclaimed he had never been rescued from the ocean. That no hand ever did reach down into the dark waters to grasp his hand at the last possible second.

That he was dead.

But (as he surely couldn’t be in heaven) the concept of this being some kind of in-between, a testing ground for his soul or some sort of readiness exercise meant to prepare him for passage through the Pearly Gates, was also a theory with no practical use. If this was a supernal experience only, then the Joseph he was looking for didn’t exist and neither did the wife he was mourning. Nothing was real at all. And if this wasn’t real, if this wasn’t a physical reality taking place on an objective plane of existence with true ramifications to be applied across actual time and space…then forget it. He’d just kill himself and save the misery of failing whatever test some pantheistic non-being called “Everything” had somehow and for some reason conjured up to amuse its unconscious self.

He needed a drink before his mind slipped down the hill of sanity and plunged headlong into this philosophic migraine. He’d gone there before and understood why some scientists reportedly killed themselves in the face of certain revelations, revelations concerning the very essence of existence, and he had no intention of returning to that padded room now. It was too much for the mind of the creature to grasp the methods and the world of the creator, reality itself a black hole full of infinite questions. Scientists learning of more and more dimensions, so-called “dark matter” comprising 97% of the universe, quantum physics, string theory…

Jack shook his head and, with great effort, pushed all the madness out of his mind with one mental stroke.

“Jesus Christ. Get a grip.”

Jesus
Christ.
And suddenly, he knew why people like his wife chose to believe in nothing. It was easier to avoid the chaos, both philosophically and ethically. But such a belief system would lead him right back to the same irrational theories advising him that nothing was real, that it was all some scam, a random, meaningless mistake. There was no soul, no spirit, just the here and now and nothing forever. Love a chemical reaction in the brain, truth, beauty, and joy cruel fantasies produced by natural selection meant only to prolong the human species for…something.
Shit.
That was more depressing than the “why” and “how” questions.

Stop!

He smacked himself in the face, trying to stabilize the pillars of his own sanity. And in an instant, his world focused, the ivory towers of endless conjecture turning to sand and blowing away, the house that lay beyond the windshield—
his
house—the anchor keeping his mind from dissolving with them. He was back in his own driveway.

A drink. Now. Before I lose my freakin’ marbles.

He knew that getting smashed wouldn’t help find Joseph, but neither would winding up in a padded room, drooling all over himself for the rest of his life.

He shut the engine off, and the headlights fell away. Taking the key from the ignition, he pushed the door open and stepped out. Standing there in the darkness, he studied his environment. Felt the cool night air glide through his hair. Smelled the freshly cut grass of nearby lawns. Listened to the strange cricket symphony. Watched fireflies blink yellow in the neighbor’s yard. And in all of it, the reception of the perceived authenticity never wavered. Never gave way to a watery static as alien dream-gods tried better adjusting antenna REM. There were no giant arthropods crawling up the sides of the chimney, no deep-sea fish from hell swimming through the yard—though he did double-check to make certain they were fireflies blinking around him and not the glowing photophores of demon anglers.

Satisfied for now that he wasn’t actually an undead prisoner to the ocean’s floor, he continued to the house. But when he went to put the key into the keyhole, the door pushed open. Again. Only this time, he knew that he’d locked it.

He stepped back carefully. There was no car in the driveway, but he found a black, unmarked van with tinted windows parked in the street six doors away. His pulse quickened.

A noise came from inside.

Being the Jerry that he was, mentally prepared to survive anything from Martial Law to the super-virus that would wipe out mankind, he slipped his shoes off, leaving them on the porch as he eased the door open. Once inside, he silently shut it behind him.

The smell of kerosene hit him at once.

Kerosene?
He
thought
of the kerosene heater he kept in the garage. But what would someone in a dark van parked halfway down the street want with his kerosene heater? If the person wanted to burn down his house, he’d be much better off using the gasoline in the garage rather than kerosene. But, though he knew that kerosene (which was used instead of gasoline as jet fuel because of its safer flash point) could never be hot enough to melt a hundred and ten stories of steel and concrete in fifty-six minutes, he no doubt believed that it could burn down his house. Just not as effectively and quickly as gasoline.

As he tiptoed toward the stairs, he saw through the living room and noticed the interior door to the garage standing open in the kitchen. He raced up the stairs, silent in his socks, his heart thumping in his chest. Entering the bedroom, he ran to his closet and pulled a gun case from a shelf stacked with independent newspapers. Fumbling with the number lock, sweat began beading across his forehead. He finally got it open, grabbed the 9mm Smith & Wesson out of the foam padding, and rammed home the seventeen-round clip that he’d previously filled with hollow points. He moved the slide back and let go, the familiar sound of the first round being chambered startling him. This wasn’t the shooting range.

Still hearing noises from the garage, but wary of more than one intruder, he descended the stairs, the pistol shaking ever so slightly in his grasp. He’d made it a point to visit the range every other month and had no qualms about his ability use the gun on a
target
. Shooting a person would be something entirely different. Something he didn’t really want to do—though he had a feeling that was what it was going to come down to.

As he approached the open garage door, he swept the sights back and forth throughout the house, waiting for someone else to appear. No one did. Standing with his back against the kitchen wall and the door extending open beside him, he took a few deep breaths. He suddenly wondered if he should call the police. It was a tempting thought, but one that wouldn’t resolve the situation. By the time the police got here, he’d either be without a kerosene heater or in need of the fire department. Peering through the tiny space between the open door and its frame, he could see a person’s back hunched over something on the floor. He flexed his sweaty palms on the plastic grip of his gun.

One. Two. Three…

He spun around past the door, bringing the pistol up in one fluid motion and aiming it down the few steps that led into the garage.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he cried out. But with the scene laid out before him now, he knew exactly what the bastard was doing. And fear began bleeding away to fury.

The man turned around. He was dressed in jeans and a leather jacket and was reaching for something at his waist. Red containers of gasoline and blue bottles of kerosene sat scattered around his feet, the heater behind him. When he saw Jack standing there pointing the gun at him, his eyes flashed first with recognition and then utter surprise.

The arsonist’s surprise, the recognition in his eyes, how he’d gotten in the front door so easily… Jack’s mind was suddenly spinning, but his thoughts were interrupted by the guy’s eyes turning cold and his pulling out a gun. Jack fired three times. The first shot buried itself in the man’s shoulder, the second his side, and the third seemed to miss entirely, blasting chunks of concrete off the far wall. But one of the two impacts must have caused the guy to squeeze the trigger on his own gun because he shot himself in the leg.

Screaming, the man dropped, but as he fell, he raised his gun and squeezed off three more shots of his own.

Jack felt the first whiz past his head before he was able to spin off to the side of the doorway and out of sight. Reaching back around the doorframe, he fired blindly into the garage. He heard another scream. Then he ran across the doorway, a shot ringing out after him as he cleared the opening and kicked the door shut. There was no other way out of the garage. The intruder either had to come through the door or bleed to death in the garage. But before Jack could position himself to cover the door, it flung open, its arc passing inches from his face and smashing against the wall, cracking the sheetrock with its gold handle.

As the man stumbled into the kitchen, rage eliminated Jack’s ability to think and to strategize. He hurled himself at the stranger, tackling him down the short steps. The intruder took the brunt of the fall, landing on his back, his skull bouncing off the concrete floor. The gun flew out of his hand and skittered to a stop some seven feet away from his reaching hand.

Clambering to his knees, Jack sat all his weight on the man’s chest, pinning him down. And then he began to beat him in the face with the butt of his pistol. The gathering storms of confusion and pain had merged into a blind vehemence that was translating the adversary beneath him as the sole source of all his recent misery. And so he continued pounding the hell out of him. Out of the serpent that had reared its head to bite away everything dear in his life. Out of the masked men, the Nassau police, and ship security. Out of cancer and mammograms. Out of a consumer society that feasted on carcinogens and the greedy money makers that got off on it all. Out of an unforgiving, meaningless world that seemed bent only on destruction…

Jack screamed, a primal, animal frenzy pushing him to the brink of craze.

The man tried raising his hands to block the blows, but each strike left him more disoriented, forcing him to ignore his face being smashed in and to divert his hands to Jack’s throat, squeezing with all the strength he had left.