The Fall of Never(125)

The sharp stink of citron stung his nose again, caused his nostrils to flare. And understanding what that meant just mere seconds before the row of windows imploded, Josh dropped to the carpet, his hands laced over the back of his head, and pushed himself up against the foot of the sofa. A second later and he felt the floor rattle, heard a solid crash, and was aware of blades of glass whizzing inches above his head. A blast of freezing air accosted him.

Someone has to hear all this. Surely a neighbor was shaken awake by the racket. Someone—anyone—has to help.

Around him: the sounds of glass striking the far wall and thudding to the carpet in pieces. Some blades drove themselves into the wall, where they stuck like arrows in a target. Some others struck framed photographs, sending them crashing to the floor as well. A crystal vase on the small coffee table was struck with an audible ping! but did not break.

A fading image of Kelly fell across his mind, and he forced himself back to his feet. For a moment, he was pinned with disillusionment before the row of glassless windows like a superhero atop a skyscraper—arms out, clothes billowing, hair blown back—before reality came crashing down on him. Back in the real world, he pushed passed the sofa, the phonograph moaning with Ellington’s orchestra, and back into Nellie’s bedroom.

For one insane moment, Josh saw Sampers—the kid who’d shot and nearly killed him over a year ago—standing beside Nellie’s bed, one hand over the old woman’s chest. He saw this with perfect lucidity—saw the kid standing beside the window in his crushed leather jacket, the curtains billowing out around his feet, his long, greasy hair hanging in front of his eyes. And he turned up to look at Josh too, his skin pockmarked and honeycombed with sores, his eyes lifeless except for the underlying accusatory light that throbbed beneath their surface.

How’ve you been, Cavey? You been doin’ good? You been doin’ real good? I haven’t.

And then Sampers was gone. He’d never really been there: it was just a trick of the light, shadows mixed with the undulation of the curtains. And Nellie’s mind, he thought. That made the most sense. Nellie’s mind, suddenly fired up and running in the red, had plucked that image of Sampers from his own head and had made him see it. She’d made Sampers real, if only for a second.

Real?

“Real enough,” he uttered, his voice shaking, and rushed to the old woman’s bedside.



Carlos Mendes, asleep on his beeper, was awoken by its vibration. Though he’d become accustomed to late-night pages from the hospital over the years, something deep inside him knew this wasn’t the hospital tonight. He needn’t check the number on the pager to know that.

He pulled himself out of bed, casting a glance at the huddled form of his wife, and slipped on a pair of jeans and an old Rangers sweatshirt. Downstairs, he gathered his medical bag and shuffled out into the cold. An absurd notion struck him then: If we just change the baby’s name, Nellie’s prediction will not come true. It is as simple as that.

Could it be?

He took Marie’s car into the city, and was downtown just as it started to snow. It came down in a thick blanket almost immediately, then lessened to a mere flurry by the time he reached the West Side and Nellie Worthridge’s apartment complex. In the darkness, it loomed above him like an omen.

We’re like old friends now, he thought, scaling the building with his eyes.

He parked in an alley and hustled up into the lobby, took the elevator to Nellie’s floor. There, he paused as he stepped from the elevator. The corridor was mostly dark, the row of ceiling lights crackling and flashing intermittently. And with each flash, shadows jumped, colors swam. For one crazy instant, he thought the walls had been spray-painted with words: words from his nightmares. He froze, his bowels involuntarily clenching. Peering through the darkness to the end of the hallway, he expected to see that bizarre, deviled caricature of Peter Pan—

(someone else)

—sketched across the far wall. But no—it was all in his head. He was being too jumpy.

He rushed to Nellie’s apartment, considered knocking, then decided to just let himself in.

He’s first impression was of Blatty’s The Exorcist: lights were blinking, the phonograph was slowly rotating through an old jazz record, and Jesus Christ the goddamn windows had been blown out. Papers and napkins and paper cups—anything the wind was capable of manipulating—bobbed along the floor or gathered in tiny whirlwinds. Directly in front of him, a brass-and-wood wall clock ticked loudly, its minute hand moving too fast. There was a definite fruity stink inside the room, hardly dissuaded by the fresh night air, and as Carlos took a few steps into the apartment, he could feel the hairs along the nape of his neck and his arms prickle and rise. It was static electricity, he thought; that pulsing undercurrent from Nellie’s mind.

He yelled out for Josh, who appeared around the hallway looking like a drowned mutt. He was breathing heavy, his hair in tousled ringlets, his eyes hidden in the deep pockets of his skull. As Josh approached him, Carlos saw that the kid’s hands were quaking, that his right hand was even bleeding. There was also blood wiped in a smeared arc across his white undershirt.

“Doc,” he muttered.

“What the hell’s happening here?”

“What’s the extent of…” Josh cleared his throat. He sounded confused and uncertain as to what he was trying to say. “Nellie’s doing it.”