The Fall of Never(64)

It was a scenario he’d already started to consider: Marie, pumped full of sedatives, staring blankly from her hospital bed in the delivery room, a drying stain of blood on the sheets. Her eyes unfocused and nearly sightless, staring at—or through—the far wall. He’d go to her, console her, try and touch her. Powerless, he would feel like a child. He’d say words—just stupid, meaningless words—and place an awkward and shaking hand on her small shoulder. And she wouldn’t look at him, her eyes still so distant and void of life, and he’d know she was thinking about the baby they’d lost, the baby that she had been carrying inside her for so long now. Dead things. He’d know because he’d be thinking about that, too. And what else was there? That stillborn creature was supposed to be the rest of their lives and now it was gone. And he’d try to say more words—These things happen—but he’d find himself slipping away too, his throat beginning to constrict, his eyes—like Marie’s—steadily losing focus and sailing off into some painless oblivion. And what was to happen from there? They’d return to a house that never seemed emptier, and his mother would be there sobbing silently in her bedroom behind a closed door, and there’d be cold soup on the stove and cold coffee in a pot. Marie would disappear into the bathroom for twenty minutes at a time and he’d most likely step out onto the back porch to smoke, his eyes grazing lazily over the cornucopia of blacktop graffiti down below: EAT YOUR YOUNG and SATAN’Z PLAYGROUND and BE LIKE VEAL. And then there’d be sleep…and maybe—blessedly—the dreams would have run themselves out, perhaps because his subconscious could no longer handle the anxiety of them, or perhaps the object of those dreams had been delivered stillborn and such foreboding dreams no longer served the dreamer any purpose. Then there would be several weeks of uncomfortable noncommunication, which included his arbitrary attempts at stimulating his wife’s return to normalcy through banal conversation, followed by his zealous immersion into his work, keeping longer hours than he’d ever known—once again, anything to keep away from the house. As if there were a disease within the walls, slowly blackening his lungs and killing him with each breath he took.

That’s how it would be, he knew. He could imagine it so clearly.

He suddenly found himself standing outside Nellie Worthridge’s apartment building in the dark, his shoulders soaked with sleet. He stared at the crossword of illuminated windows with bitter resolve.

The old woman lives somewhere inside that building, he thought. I should stop being such a coward and finally go speak with her.

But what could he say without sounding insane?

He felt eyes on his back, heard dull footsteps on the wet concrete. Turning, he saw a figure emerge from the darkness of a street corner and move towards him. The neon lights of the all-night diner across the street played circus colors across the approaching figure’s face. Mendes only stared. It was a young man. And to his amazement, the man stopped directly in front of him, causing Mendes to pull reflexively back against the face of the building.

“Doctor?”

Startled, Mendes uttered a jumble of nonsense.

“It’s Joshua Cavey,” the figure said. “We met at the hospital, remember? I was the one who—”

“Yes,” Mendes managed. Despite the cold, his hands were sweating in the pockets of his coat.

Josh glanced up at the building, his long hair wet and hanging in loose strands in front of his face. He then looked back at Mendes. “I know,” he said.

Mendes was confused. “I’m…sorry?”

“I couldn’t stop thinking about it, either,” Josh said. “Something’s been tugging at me.”

“What are you talking about?”

Josh looked around and spied the diner across the street. He jerked his head in that direction. “Come on,” he said. “I’m freezing my ass off out here.”



Josh ordered a plate of scrambled eggs, toast, hash browns, and burnt sausage links while Mendes only sipped at a cup of lukewarm coffee. He watched the younger man rub his hands together before shaking an obscene amount of salt onto his scrambled eggs, then shovel some into his mouth. When Josh offered him a slice of toast, Mendes only shook his head.

“I figured you’d show up sooner or later,” Josh said from nowhere. “I even thought about calling you at some point. Figured you might be going crazy. You feel it, right? Like we’re being drawn here.”

“I don’t know.” Mendes’s hand was shaking, causing his coffee to ripple. He let go of the cup and looked up at Josh with tired, searching eyes. The young man’s face was all the evidence he needed to see that this young man too had not been sleeping for quite some time now. Also, Mendes thought he recognized a trace of fear.

“Listen,” Josh said, “I’ve learned some things. But—and I’m going to sound crazy here—but I need you…I mean…”

“I’m willing to consider anything you have to tell me,” Mendes said. “I’m in no position to scoff at theories, believe me.”

Josh nodded, not taking his eyes off him. “Yeah, all right.” He leaned over and unzipped his backpack that he’d rested on the seat beside him. He withdrew two textbooks from it, placed them on the table. “What do you know about telepathy, Doctor?”

Mendes just stared at him. “You mean like psychic powers?”