Waking Lazarus (23 page)

He hadn’t seen any unmarked cars parked outside his home, yet that didn’t mean they weren’t around somewhere. You never knew when—or how—
they
were watching.

Jude shook his head, banishing the paranoid thoughts. He moved through the house and noticed a red light blinking on his phone’s message machine. Kristina? Frank? Rachel? He felt his heart tug, hoping it was Rachel. He went to the machine and pressed the button. On the recording, he heard the Jake Brake of a diesel truck, and under it a raspy voice: ‘‘Well now, cowboy. That’s an awfully small thing to do, hit a man in the head like that. Hit him when he’s down, even.’’

Jude’s blood chilled. It was Kenneth Sohler, leaving a message on his machine. Had to have been Sohler the night before, too. Must be holed up at a truck stop or something.

‘‘You best be looking over your shoulder.’’

Click
.

The rest of that night Jude felt jittery, full of nervous energy. Part of it was fueled by Sohler’s phone call; obviously the man was intent on finding him. And really, he should call Chief Odum, play the message for him.

Tomorrow. He’d do that tomorrow. The message would help clear his name.

But that decision still didn’t relieve the unexplainable sense of dread he felt. Something bad was going to happen. Something very bad, indeed.

He just wished he knew what it was.

Maybe he should leave, avoid it all. He’d done that before, moved on and disappeared. It was probably the best idea, all things considered: just pack up a few clothes, grab a bit of cash, and hit the road. Start over again somewhere else.

But there had been no Nathan, no Rachel, before.

He heard a car pull up and cut its engine. Who was it? For once, he regretted sheetrocking the windows. He went to the door and paused, his hand resting lightly on the knob. Maybe it was
them
, putting him under surveillance again and . . .

‘‘No!’’ He spat the word, surprising himself. No, it wasn’t
them
. There never had been any
them
. He knew that now, and he wasn’t going to let himself slide back into that way of thinking. Not when he was so close, so close to having a normal life.

He opened the door a crack and peeked outside. A black and white police cruiser sat on the street. The car’s dome light came on, and Jude recognized the face of Officer Grant, the man who had escorted him to the station the previous evening. Officer Grant nodded, then turned off the dome light.

Jude closed the door. Okay. Message received, Chief Odum. He wasn’t going anywhere.

He sat in the lone chair at his dining table and watched his hands tremble; his whole body was shaking, threatening to come apart, and he couldn’t control it. What had he done? What in God’s name had he done? His mind, his oh-so-logical mind, told him he’d done nothing wrong. But his soul, his heart, whatever you wanted to call it, told him the opposite.

Jude scratched at his forehead. The thoughts inside felt like tiny insects, crawling and burrowing. He couldn’t stop the infestation, and they were multiplying. Multiplying.

A knock came at the door.

What?
Who?
His shaking stopped for a moment.

‘‘Jude? Hello?’’ Another knock. Kristina. Somehow he knew it would be her. Part of it was a process of elimination: how many people came knocking on Ron Gress’s door, especially late at night? Only one. Part of it was . . . something else. He didn’t know what.

He considered whether or not he should answer. Of course she would know he was inside—

‘‘Jude, I know you’re in there.’’

—but after all, what was she going to do? Break in?

He looked down at his hands, willed them to stop shaking. ‘‘Hold on just a second,’’ he yelled. He couldn’t let Kristina see this. Any of it. He took a few deep breaths and stood.

‘‘I’m coming,’’ he said, forcing his legs to move. He wanted to see, to make sure it was really Kristina. Just to be sure.

Jude first disarmed the security system before heading to the door. He slid back the dead bolts but kept the chain secured, and opened the door a crack to peek out. Kristina stood waiting.

‘‘Open the door, Jude.’’

Jude closed the door again, slid the chain out of its channel, and opened the door wide for her. He blinked a few times. Across the street he saw the dome light inside Officer Grant’s car come on again, a puzzled look on Officer Grant’s face. Jude waved to him as Kristina walked in, then shut and dead-bolted the door behind her.

‘‘I hope I’m not too late,’’ she said.

Jude froze. She
knew
. She knew he had made a mistake—a mistake that would end in disaster. He cleared his throat. ‘‘What do you mean?’’ he asked.

‘‘You know,’’ she said. ‘‘Too late. Too late at night.’’

He relaxed. A little. Still, he had the impression that
wasn’t
what she’d meant. ‘‘Actually . . . I have a few things I should tell you.’’

After they sat down in his living room, he poured it all out, like a mountain stream swollen with spring runoff poured itself into a larger river headed for the coast. He let go of everything, and when he finished, he felt empty. It was a good feeling.

Kristina sat looking at him for a few moments before speaking. ‘‘Rough couple of days,’’ she said.

‘‘I’ve had better.’’

‘‘You wanna know what I think?’’

‘‘I’d like that.’’

‘‘You’re worried about what you did today. Or, more appropriately, didn’t do. To be blunt, you should be. One, it’s never a good idea to ignore the signs as they’re given to you. Two, you need to keep in mind every decision in the universe has ripples, echoes that spread out from it.’’

‘‘So I’ve also doomed the universe,’’ he said with a touch of acid in his voice.

‘‘I’m not saying that. I’m saying there will be repercussions, and there’s nothing you can do now except wait and deal with them when they come.’’

‘‘Thanks for the pep talk.’’

‘‘A pep talk we wouldn’t be having if you were doing what you’re supposed to.’’

‘‘And what, exactly, is that? I’ve never been real clear on this. You’re the big expert.’’

She stared at him, said nothing.

Okay, it was time to cool down. Kristina was here to talk things through with him, not be his punching bag for guilt. ‘‘I’m sorry,’’ he said. ‘‘I just . . . I’m scared.’’

‘‘That’s good,’’ she said. ‘‘Fear can make you do the impossible. The miraculous.’’

‘‘Is that what you think? I’m some kind of miracle worker?’’

She pulled out a manila envelope and handed it to him. He looked at it blankly, then at her again. She nodded, so he opened it. Without looking, he knew what he’d find inside: his book.
Into the
Light.

‘‘I’ve bookmarked some pages,’’ she said. ‘‘Open it up to the first one.’’

Jude opened the book to a page marked by a yellow sticky note.
First death—age eight
, it read.

‘‘Okay,’’ she said. ‘‘Now check out the second and third notes.’’ He flipped to the second yellow sticky:
Second death—age sixteen
. And the third:
Third death—age twenty-four. See a pattern?

He looked at her again. ‘‘Eight,’’ he whispered. ‘‘It happened every eight years.’’

She nodded. ‘‘So, is that a coincidence? You tell me.’’

He sat, listening to the hard tick of the analog clock in his bedroom down the hall—the only noise in the house. ‘‘Don’t take this wrong, but so what? What’s so special about eight?’’

She shrugged this time. ‘‘Nothing. Everything. We always want everything to mean something, unless it really
does
mean something. Then we want to ignore it. But if you read the Bible, if you study the significance of numbers in it, you’ll see the number eight always represents a new beginning, a starting over.’’ She paused, her eyes flickering. ‘‘A resurrection.’’

Jude caught himself starting to roll his eyes. This was getting a little too out there. And yet, he noticed, the trembling in his body had stopped.

‘‘Look,’’ Kristina said, ‘‘I think we can say you’ve come to the point where you know there’s something different about you. Something special.’’

‘‘Different. I’ll give you that.’’

‘‘But you’ve never explored
why
, have you?’’

‘‘You’re assuming there’s some reason.’’

‘‘You’re assuming there isn’t. You want to assign everything to coincidence, but I don’t think it’s coincidence at work here. I don’t think Jude Allman has anything to do with coincidence.’’

‘‘So?’’

‘‘So you’re only partway there. You found out you can see things about other people, help them avoid death. And, you have this power over death yourself, as the man who keeps returning to life. So what are you doing with it?’’

He sat motionless. ‘‘Nothing.’’

‘‘That’s right. Nothing.’’

He shook his head. ‘‘No, that’s all wrong. I’ve had, I’ve had these bad memories, you know? I’ve . . . um . . . had these blackouts and things.’’ He felt the trembling beginning again and tried to quell it. ‘‘And look, everyone’s going to die. You—you’re going to die. Why haven’t I had any kind of vision about you?’’

Kristina grabbed his hand, and her skin was cold—almost icy. ‘‘You have all the evidence you need, but you’re trying to disbelieve anyway. That’s human. Why do you think having visions about
anyone
means you’ll have visions about
everyone
? Miracles are a suspension of natural law, so forget about what you think should be happening, and concentrate on what
is
.’’

For a few moments the only sound was Kristina trying to catch her breath.

Jude looked at her, nodded slowly, smiled. ‘‘As if you see miracles every day.’’

‘‘Hey, I’m just one of the weirdos who follows you around, remember? What do I know?’’

‘‘You’re never gonna let go of that, are you?’’

Now it was her turn to smile. ‘‘Not a chance.’’

Jude realized she was still holding on to his hand, but her skin was warm now. In a way, it was pleasant, enjoyable. If only Kristina weren’t dying, maybe . . .

He sat back, pulled away his hand, and cleared his throat. ‘‘You’re very convincing, but there’s still the matter of these seizures, or whatever. The blackouts. I mean, the mind is a very powerful thing, and I could be imagining a lot of things. I could be imagining you.’’

She smiled. ‘‘Maybe you’re just a brain in a jar, and you’re imagining everything.’’

‘‘It would be more helpful if you said, ‘No, I’m not a figment of your imagination. I’m real.’ ’’

‘‘Well, of course I know
I’m
real. It’s you I’m not so sure about yet.’’

After Kristina left, Jude armed his alarm system, went to his room, and sat on the easy chair, thinking about Kristina’s words. It made enough sense, in some ways. But he didn’t really want it to. Okay, so there was something . . . different . . . about him. Fair enough; that certainly fit, whether he was becoming psychic or psychotic. Different.

Jude took a deep breath. What he needed right now was to be plain vanilla. He needed to return to work, to get a bit of normalcy in his life. To see Nathan and Rachel after work, chase a rare and unfamiliar feeling. To be the kind of father he never had.

Being different from everyone else could wait. For now, until his head cleared, he needed to be the same. Tomorrow would come and go, Bradley would be perfectly fine, and he’d look back on this conversation with Kristina and laugh.

32

ACCEPTING

The Hunter and the Normal sat with electrodes taped to their (his) temples. He (they) had administered an extra long session of treatments, but inside, this didn’t really matter. The shocks didn’t hurt anymore. They were low buzzes, humming in the ears like nasty wasps, yet without any real sting. Maybe it was time for more extreme measures. That was what the broken shard of glass was: extreme measures.

It was time to accept. He (they) had
become
, but the next step of
becoming
was
accepting
.

They had been careful, tentative of recent. Lying low, as the saying used to go. As the Normal—dressed in the Normal’s clothes, walking with the Normal’s gait, smiling with the Normal’s teeth, and speaking with the Normal’s voice—they had gone beyond tracking a Quarry. Even enticed a Quarry and started driving to the house. Started.

Downtown, the disciplined side took over, and the Quarry was set free. It was a simple thing, and the Quarry wouldn’t say anything. Probably hadn’t even known it was a Quarry, and that was the exciting thing about hunting as the Normal. Maybe, more Extreme Measures . . .

Then, the maybes disappeared. It was time to
accept
, the next stage of
becoming
.

But it was also time for Extreme Measures, because Extreme Measures would help them
accept
.

The Hunter and the Normal picked up the large shard of the glass, then ran the sharp edge of it across the exposed skin of their stomach. The jagged edge traced a trail of crimson, but the glass, too, was just a nasty wasp, without any real sting.

He. They. Extreme measures. Becoming. Accepting.

33

CLEANSING

Jude felt perfect the next morning, really perfect for the first time in . . . maybe ever. Alive. He smiled as the word crossed his mind. Yeah, alive. Jude Allman was alive. Imagine that.

Yesterday’s worries, yesterday’s trembling fear, had dissolved like a bad dream. He held up his hand and looked at it. Steady as always. And that conversation with Kristina last night, well, maybe that
had
been a dream.

He sat in the break room for coffee kickoff. He always called the first fifteen minutes of the day coffee kickoff because Frank called it coffee kickoff. And far be it from Ron Gress, Compliant Janitor, to rock the boat. Coffee kickoff it was, even though he usually stayed away from the stuff. Today would be even more enjoyable, because Frank was gone. He’d said yesterday he was going to take some time off, something about working in the basement.

He even decided to try a bit of coffee today; counting the cups he’d had at Rachel’s and the cafe, it was his fourth in about five years. He didn’t do it because he craved coffee but because he craved something normal. He raised the cup to no one in particular and did a quick toast to Frank and his most important work in the basement.