Danny Tobey - The Faculty Club

And as a result, for the first time I understood the situation we were in. What we represented to the white-haired members of the V &D, waiting in line for their chance to live on. We represented death.

“Sarah, they’re never going to stop hunting us.”

She gave me a stern look.

“Yes they will. We’re going to stop them.”

“We are?”

“We are.”

She took my face in her hands.

“Do you know why? Because I know what I want. And they’re in my way.”

There was real power, a force in her words. She stood and took the bottom of my shirt in her hands. She pulled it over my head and dropped it on the floor. Then she reached to the corner of her towel tucked above her breast and tugged, letting it fall in one fluid movement. She stood a foot away. I looked at her full curves. I felt the heat coming off her skin. She pressed my face into her stomach.

I looked up at her.

“I’ve never done this before,” I said.

She arched an eyebrow. I started to explain, but she put a finger over my mouth.

“I know, I know. You lived with your parents in college.” She grinned. “You’re a smart guy. You’ll figure it out.”

• • •

Later, she smiled at me with her head propped on her hand.

“Do you think it’s possible?” she asked me.

“What?”

“Possession. Stealing someone’s body.”

“I don’t know. Do you?”

She shrugged.

“I had this patient once. A nice old man. He had a stroke. Every morning, I’d walk into his room and have a totally normal conversation with him. Then I’d point at his right hand and say, ‘Whose hand is that?’ And he’d say, in a completely casual voice, ‘I don’t know.’

“‘Well,’ I’d ask him, ‘it’s connected to this wrist, isn’t it?’

“‘Yes.’

“‘And that wrist is connected to this arm, right?’

“‘Right.’

“‘And this arm is connected to your shoulder, isn’t it?’

“‘Uh-huh.’

“‘So whose arm is it?’

“‘I don’t know,’ he’d say. ‘Is it yours?’”

“You’re kidding,” I said.

“I’ve seen patients with multiple personalities. People who smell colors and taste sounds. What I’m trying to say is, we don’t know anything about the brain. Not really. All our technology, all our research, we’re just scratching the surface. It’s still basically a black box. So, yes, I think it’s possible. But I’ve been thinking, lying here.”

“About what?”

“Jeremy, if we’re right, then they’re killing people. Strip away all the bullshit and chanting and superstition, that’s all they’re doing. It’s human sacrifice. We can’t let that go. If we do…” Her smile was completely gone now. “Then we deserve whatever they’ve got planned for us.”

By the time Miles got back, Sarah and I were dressed and sitting at the small table in the kitchenette by the window.

He barreled in with a smile on his face.

“Done!” he said, “done done done done done. Twelve copies, stamped, addressed, ready to go… assuming you got what you needed…”

He looked at me.

“I did.”

“Our theory checked out?”

I told him the story.

“Holy crap,” Miles said, rubbing his woolly beard. “Curiouser and curiouser. Call me crazy, but I love this place. The rest of the world, it’s all Starbucks and Subway. We are into some seriously macabre shit.”

“Miles.”

“Yeah?”

“You’re crazy.”

He clapped his hands.

“I owe it all to you, Jeremy! I was just a lonely grad student until you brought magic into my life! ‘Oh go do, that voodoo, that you do, so well…’” he sang, channeling Tony Bennett.

“Miles. What now?”

“Now? Now we go mail these bad boys. I want them mailed from out-of-town mailboxes. The more the better. Brownsville, Mason, Orange… Once the horses are out of the barn… we’re golden…”

Miles paused. He looked at Sarah. He looked at me. Then back and forth between us.

“Wait a second…”

He wrinkled his brow.

“Something’s different here…”

I hadn’t noticed it, but there’d been a looseness between Sarah and me at the table. I was suddenly very aware of my body language. I let my arm slide a millimeter away from hers. My legs had been crossed in her direction. I crossed them the other way. But it was too late.

“Oh,” Miles said, feigning indignation. “Oh, I see.”

“Miles…”

“Well I’m just very happy for you both.”

“Miles, stop it!”

He grinned ear to ear and gave us a double thumbs-up. I saw Sarah turn bright red.

“Mazel tov!” Miles burst out, which was odd since he was Episcopalian, and he did a little dance.

“Are you four years old, Miles?”

“If I were four years old,” Miles said, “I would’ve done this.”

He made his index fingers kiss passionately with a giant smooching sound. He wiggled his eyebrows up and down.

“Don’t we have a job to do?” Sarah blurted out, not quite making eye contact with Miles or anyone.

“Yes, of course!” Miles said. “Let’s take three cabs. We can cover more territory that way. And an hour from now, we’ll be home free!”

Miles divided the packages between us.

And I headed to the train station for a last trip to New York.

On board, I tried to focus on the small towns and lakes passing by, but I couldn’t keep my mind off Humpty Dumpty. It was like quicksand in my brain: the harder I tried to fight the image of Humpty collapsed on his desk in a red pool, the deeper I sank into it. He turned on his club, and they killed him. What would they do to me?

I thought of my grandfather, the only other person I’d really known who died. After his funeral, the family entertained visitors in his small house until the last one left, and then we sat in the living room. My mom and dad were on the sofa. My little cousins played at my aunt’s feet, oblivious of the whole thing. My brother wasn’t there, of course. My grandfather’s easy chair, the one he always sat in with an old plaid bedsheet over it, was conspicuously empty. Nobody had the heart to sit in it. What was strange about that moment was that I didn’t feel the slightest bit sad. I missed my grandfather terribly, and I’d grieved up to that moment and for weeks after it; even to this day, I still sometimes received unexpected pangs that were gone as fast as they came. But in that moment, sitting in his room looking at my family, I felt inexplicably, outrageously happy-a happiness that I can describe only as a buzzing through my whole body. Happy might be the wrong word. It was giddiness. Elation. I’ve never heard anyone else describe something like it. Frankly, I’m too embarrassed to ask.

I wondered now, on the train: what would my grandfather think of me today?

I left the train and called my brother from a pay phone.

“We need to meet.”

“Why? What’s up?”

“Nothing. I just need to see you.”

“Fine. Come to my office.”

“No. Someplace random. Where no one knows you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Just do it. I’ll explain everything.”

A pause on the line.

“Intersection of Clinton and Delancey. There’s a little place called Mico’s. They serve burritos that taste like sand. Is that crappy enough for you?”

“This better be good,” Mike said to me. He looked tired.

“Late night?”

“I’m in the Model-of-the-Month club.”

I took a breath. The restaurant had shades over its small windows, and we were in the back in a dark booth. The service was so surly no one had even acknowledged our existence. I had to admit, it was perfect. We finally got two coffees.