Clive Barker - Everville

"It's the only one I've found so far, but I'll keep looking."

"I'll check in on my way up to Oregon@' "I was thinking@'Grillo began.

"You should talk to Howie and Jo-Beth." "Yeah, I will. I was thinking about Fletcher." "When did you last talk to them?" "A couple of weeks ago." "And?" Tesla pressed. "they were fine," Grillo replied.

"Tommy-Ray had the hots for her, you know. They're twins-2' "I know@'

"One egg, one soul. I swear, he was crazy about her-"

"Fletcher," Grillo said. "What about him?"

"If he's there in Everville I'm going to come meet him." "What for?" There was a short pause. Then Grillo said, "For the Nuncio."

"What are you talking about? There is no Nuncio. I destroyed the last of it." "He's got to have kept some for himself." "He was the one that asked me to destroy it, for God's sake." "No. He kept some." "What the hell's all this about?" "I'll tell you some other time. You find Fletcher, and I'll try tracing Tommy-Ray."

"Try sleeping first, Grillo. You sound like shit."

"I don't sleep much these days, Tes. It's a waste of time."

Howie had started working on the car just after eight, intending to get his tinkering over and done with before the sun got too hot. This was the fifth blistering summer they'd lived in Illinois, and he was determined it would be the last. He'd thought returning to the state where he'd been born and raised would be reassuring in a time of uncertainty. Not so. All it had done was remind him of how radically his life had changed in the last half-decade, and how few of those changes had been for the better.

But whenever his spirits were down-which was often since he'd lost his job in March-he only had to look at Jo-Beth cradling Amy and he would feel them rise again.

It was five years since he'd first laid eyes on Jo-Beth in Palomo Grove; five years since their fathers had waged war on the streets to keep them apart. Years in which they'd lived under an assumed name in a suburb where nobody cared about your life because they'd given up caring about their own. Where the sidewalks were littered and the cars dirty and smiles hard to come by. It wasn't the life he'd wanted to give his wife and his daughter, but D'Amour had put it to them this way: If they lived in plain sight as Mr. and Mrs. Howard Katz, they would be found within months and murdered. they knew too much about the secret life of the world to be allowed to survive. Forces sworn to protect that life would silence them, and call themselves heroes for doing so. This was certain.

So they had hidden themselves away in Illinois, and only called each other Howie and Jo-Beth when the doors were bolted and the windows locked. And so far the trick had kept them alive. But it had taken its toll. It was hard, living in shadow, not daring to plan too much, to hope too hard. Once every couple of months Howie would talk to D'Amour, and ask him for some sense of how things were going. How long, he'd say, before they've forgotten who the hell we are, and we can get out into the light again? D'Amour was no great diplomat, but time after time Howie could hear him doing his best to prettify the truth a little; to find some way of keeping them from despair.

But Howie was out of patience. This was the last summer they'd be in this God forsaken hole of a place, he told himself as he sweated under the hood; the last summer he'd pretend he was somebody he wasn't to satisfy D'Amour's paranoia. Maybe once he and Jo-Beth had some part to play in the drama they'd glimpsed half a decade before; but that time had surely passed. The forces D'Amour had evoked to intimidate them-the murderous heroes who would slaughter them in their beds-had more urgent matters on their minds than pursuing two people who'd chanced to swim in Quiddity once upon a time.

The phone was ringing in the house. Howie stopped work, and picked up a rag to clean his hands. He'd skinned his knuckles, and they were stinging. He was sucking at the bloodiest when Jo-Beth appeared on the step, squinting in the sun just long enough to say, "It's for you," then disappearing into the darkness of the house.

It was Grillo.

"What's up?" Howie said. "Nothing much," came the reply. "I was calling to see if you were okay,"

"Amy's keeping us up most nights, but otherwise@'

"Still no job?"

"No job. I keep looking, but@'

"It's tough."

"We're going to have to move, Nathan. Just get out there and start a proper life."

"This... may not be the best time to do it."

:'Things are going to look up." 'I'm not talking economics."

"What then?" Silence. "Nathan?" "I don't want to alarm you-"

"But?" "It's probably nothing-"

"Will you spit it out, for God's sake?" "It's Tommy-Ray." "He's dead, Grillo." "I know that's what we've assumed-" Howie lowered his voice to a fierce whisper. "What the hell are you telling me?" "We're not exactly sure."

"We?"

"Tesla and me." "I thought she'd disappeared." "She did for a time. Now she's on her way up to Oregon-"

"Go on."

"She says your father's up there." Howie was a heartbeat from slamming the phone down. "I know how this sounds@' Grillo said quickly.

"it sounds like shit is what it sounds like," Howie said.

"I wasn't ready to believe it either. But these are strange times, Howie."

"Not for us they're not," Howie replied. "They're just a fucking waste, okay? We're wasting our fucking lives waiting for somebody to tell us something that makes sense and all you can do-" He wasn't whispering any longer, he was shouting, "all you can do is tell me my father-who's dead, Grillo, he's dead-is wandering around Oregon, and Tommy-Ray@' He heard Jo-Beth let out a sob behind him. "Shit!" he said. "Just stay out of our lives from now on, Grillo. And tell D'Amour to do the same, okay? We've had it with this crap!" He slammed down the phone, and turned to look at Jo-Beth. She was standing in the doorway, with that woebegone look on her face she wore so often these days. "What do they fucking take us for?" he said, covering his eyes with his hand. they were burning.

"You said Tommy-Ray."

"It was just-"

"What about Tommy-Ray?"

"Shit. That's all it was. Grillo's fucking shit." He glanced up at her. "It's nothing, sweetie," he said.

"I want to know what Grillo told you," Jo-Beth said doggedly.

She would worry more if he didn't tell, he suspected. So he gave a pr6cis of what Grillo had said.

"That's it?" she asked him when he was done.

'That's it," he said. "I told you it was nothing." She nodded, shrugged, and turned away. "It's all going to change, sweetie," he said. "I swear."

He wanted to get up and go to her. Wrap her in his arms and rock her till she melted against him. So many times in the past they'd ended up entwined after hard words. But no longer. Now when she turned from him he kept his distance, afraid she'd refuse him. He didn't know why or where this doubt had originated-was he reading some subtle signal in her eyes that told him to keep his distance?-but it was too strong to be overcome; or else he was too weak.

"So fucked up," he murmured to himself, his hands returning to cover his face.

Grillo's words circled in the darkness.

These are strange times...

Howie had refuted it at the time, but it was true. Whether Fletcher was in Oregon or not, whether TommyRay was alive or not, when a man could no longer put his an,ns around his wife, they were indeed strange times.

Before returning to work on the car he headed upstairs to take a peek at Amy. She'd been sick the last couple of days-her first summer on the planet she'd caught a coldand she lay exhausted in her cot, arms splayed, head to one side. He took a tissue from the box beside the bed and wiped a little gloss of spit from her chin, his touch too gentle to wake her. But somewhere in sleep, she knew her daddy was there, or so he believed. A barely perceptible smile appeared on her bow-lips, and her cheeks dimpled.