NOS4A2(120)

“Where are you?” Wayne cried, although he already knew. While he had been washing his hands, Manx had climbed into the backseat and collected the phone himself. He was probably walking around with it in the pocket of his greatcoat right this instant. Wayne felt like crying. He had built a delicate cathedral of hope, deep inside him, and Manx had stepped on it, then lit it on fire. GOD BURNED ALIVE, ONLY DEV1LS NOW.

It was stupid—pointless—but Wayne went back and opened the first drawer again, for another look.

There were Christmas ornaments in it.

They had not been there a moment ago. A moment before, the drawer had been absolutely empty. Now, though, the drawer contained an enamel angel with tragic drooping eyes, a great silver snowflake dusted in glitter, and a sleeping blue moon in a Santa Claus cap.

“What is this?” Wayne said, hardly aware he was speaking aloud.

He lifted each out in turn.

The angel hung from a golden loop, turning gently, blowing her horn.

The snowflake looked deadly, a weapon, a ninja’s throwing star.

The moon smiled at his own private musings.

Wayne returned the ornaments to the drawer where he had discovered them and gently pushed the drawer shut.

Then: opened it again.

Empty once more.

He exhaled a frustrated, fuming breath and slammed the drawer, whispering furiously, “I want my phone back.”

Something clicked in the front seat. Wayne looked up in time to see the glove compartment fall open.

His phone sat on a stack of road maps.

Wayne stood in the backseat. He had to hunch, with the back of his head pressed to the ceiling, but it could be done. He felt as if he had just seen a bit of sleight of hand; a magician had passed a palm over a bouquet of flowers and transformed them into his iPhone. Mingled with his sense of surprise—astonishment, even—was an ill tickle of dismay.

The Wraith was teasing him.

The Wraith or Manx—Wayne had a notion that they were the same thing, that the one was an extension of the other. The Wraith was a part of Manx like Wayne’s right hand was a part of him.

Wayne stared at his phone, already knowing he had to try to get it, already knowing that the car had some way of keeping it from him.

But never mind the phone; the driver’s-side door was unlocked, nothing stopping him from getting out of the car and making a run for it. Nothing except that the last three times he had tried to climb into the front seat, he had somehow wound up in the back again.

He had been drugged then, though. The Gasmask Man had sprayed him with gingerbread smoke, and it had blurred his thoughts. He could hardly pick himself up off the floor. No wonder he kept falling into the backseat. The real wonder was that he had hung on to consciousness as long as he had.

Wayne lifted his right hand, preparing to reach across the divider, and noticed at that moment that he was still holding the Christmas ornament in the shape of the moon. He had, in fact, been rubbing his thumb along its smooth, sickle-shaped curve for a full minute now: a thoughtless gesture that he found curiously soothing. He blinked at it, briefly befuddled—he could’ve sworn he’d put all three ornaments back in their drawer.

That moon, Wayne noticed now, with its plump cheeks and big nose and long eyelashes, somewhat resembled his own father. He put it in his pocket, then lifted his hand once more and reached over the divider, in the direction of the glove compartment.

As his fingers crossed into the front seat, they dwindled. His fingertips became fleshy nubs that ended at the first knuckle. When he saw it happening, his shoulders jumped in a nervous reflex, but he did not pull back his hand. It was grotesque but also somehow fascinating.

He could still feel the ends of his fingers. He could rub his fingertips together, feel the leathery pad of his thumb stroking the end of his index finger. He just couldn’t see them.

Wayne reached farther over the divider, pushed his whole hand across the invisible barrier. His arm dwindled to a smooth pink stump, a painless amputation. He opened and closed a fist he couldn’t see. It was there; he could feel his hand was there. He just wasn’t sure where there was.

He reached a little farther, in the general direction of the glove compartment and his phone.

Something poked him in the back. At the same moment, the fingers of his invisible right hand struck something solid.

Wayne turned his head to look behind him.

An arm—his arm—stretched out of the seat behind him. It didn’t look as if it had torn through the seat but as if it had grown from it. The hand at the end of the arm was skin. So was the wrist. But close to the seat, the flesh darkened and roughened and became worn old beige leather, stretching out from the seat itself, putting visible strain on the fabric around it.

The natural thing to do would’ve been to scream, but Wayne was all screamed out. He made a fist with his right hand. The hand growing from the backseat clenched its fingers. It made his stomach go all funny, controlling a disembodied arm that had sprouted from a seat cushion.

“You should try thumb wrestling with yourself,” Manx said.

Wayne jumped, and in his alarm he pulled his right arm back. The disembodied limb protruding from the seat went away, was inhaled back into the leather, and in the next instant was attached to his shoulder again, where it belonged. Wayne clasped the hand against his chest. His heart rapped swiftly beneath it.

Manx was bent to peer in through the rear driver’s-side window. He grinned to show his crooked, protruding upper teeth.