“Amy where are you?"
AMY IS WITH YOU
“Can I see Amy?"
AMY IS ALL AROUND YOU
This line of questioning was getting me nowhere. Where was her soul? According to the rules (at least, as I'd come to understand them), it had to be around here somewhere. I checked the kitchen area-in the fridge, in the stove, in the limited cupboard space. Nowhere. I checked the bathroom. Not there, either. The only place left was my closet. But there was a sign tacked to the front of it:
WARNING! DO NOT ENTER
Now that hadn't been in my real apartment. And I sure as heck didn't invent it for this reproduction. What was going on? The damned thing was sealed shut, too-some kind of gray caulk pasting up the crack between the door and its frame, and a dozen metal hinges locking it in place.
Not that this was a problem. Hell, if I could recreate an entire apartment, I sure as hell could whip up something as simple as a brain-chainsaw.
So I did, and the crazy thing came alive in my hands, its sudden weight straining my arms. I thrust it into the closet door, and the chips started to fly. And as I did, the words on the door sign changed right before my eyes:
STOP! DO NOT CONTINUE
“Oh yeah?” I shouted over the din of the saw. “Or what?” And I pushed the speeding blade deeper into the wood, cutting across toward the frame. Sparks popped as I hit a metal staple.
The sign changed again:
THIS DOOR LEADS TO HELL
Interesting. “Well then,” I shouted, “tell the Devil to pull out his best china, ‘cause he's gonna have a guest!” I sawed back through the groove I'd already cut and finished the job on the opposite side of the door. The last staple sparked, and the door immediately folded up into itself and was sucked back into the darkness.
And that was what I found within my pseudo-apartment closet: utter and perfect darkness. Miner's lamp, I thought, and one appeared on my head. Double-barrel shotgun, I thought too-just to be sure. Who knows what kind of heat Satan was packing?
This had to be a trip for the record books. From the bowl of a Philadelphia toilet to the bowels of Hell. Yee-haw.
I stepped into the closet. The air got thick fast. To take a step meant pushing my way through air thick as beach sand. I found that if I pushed hard enough to one side, the space would part easier for me, but only for a second or two before the pressure came crashing back.
After what seemed like hours, I came up against a barrier. I reached out and touched it-smooth, like wood. I knocked on it. Sounded like wood. Was this a coffin I'd wormed myself into? That would teach me a Twilight Zone-esque lesson, I supposed. Dead Guy steps into a doorway to Hell, and ends up in a coffin, finally, where he belongs. Justice is served. Cue Rod Serling's Monday morning wrap-up.
But it wasn't a coffin lid. It was a door. I found what felt like a long brass handle and turned it.
Outside the door was a beautifully furnished bedroom.
Welcome to Hell, here are your robe and slippers, make yourself at home?
I had no idea where I was supposed to be. This certainly wasn't a bedroom I'd encountered before. It must be one of Amy Langtree's memories. I wondered if her consciousness extended this far. “Amy?” I called out. “Are you there?"
Amy popped her head through the door. “What did you call me?"
She'd startled me. I breathed heavily, then said: “Oh, God. There you are."
She came into the room, wearing nothing but a sheer white bra and low-cut panties. “Did you say, Amy?"
“Uh… yes?"
Amy frowned. “Brad, we've been married for almost a year now, and you still can't remember my name?"
Brad? I stole a glimpse of myself in a dresser mirror. Yep, I still had Brad Larsen's face plastered to my skull, even in the weird brain world inside Amy's head. But how did Amy Langtree know Brad Larsen?
Then it hit me like a softball bat upside the head. Of course.
“I'm sorry, Alison."
She walked up to me and put her arms around my chest, then gave me a squeeze. “You'd better remember, mister. So who's this Amy tramp? Some ex-girlfriend? A secretary at work?"
I faked a laugh and squeezed her in return. “Nothing like that. It was a fumble of the tongue.” I kissed her on top of her head. Her hair was damp and smelled like peach shampoo.
Amy/Alison looked up at me. “You need help with your tongue?” She moved her mouth over mine, and flicked her tongue across my teeth.
Not what I needed right now. Forget traveling from a toilet to the bowels of Hell-this was far weirder. Making out with a woman's repressed memory inside her own head? I politely and quickly kissed her back, then broke the embrace. “Wait, wait. I wanted to ask you something.” I was lying, of course. “Do you know where my day planner is?"
Amy/Alison wrinkled her forehead. “You don't have a day planner. We write everything on the calendar on the desk."
“Right,” I said. “That's what I meant. The desk calendar."
“Then why did you ask me where it was? It's been on the desk all year long."
“Of course,” I said, and kissed her again, strongly tempted to linger. But I couldn't. There was too much to sort out. Already, the pieces were connecting in my mind. And those few connections were scaring the hell out of me. I needed time to think.
I walked for the bedroom door. “Be back in a second,” I said, then walked through it. The layout of the house was completely unfamiliar. I wandered down a plushly-carpeted hallway and opened the door, which turned out to be the bathroom. (I gave the toilet a nod, out of professional courtesy.) I doubled back and checked out a few more doors, but they were closets. Finally, I went downstairs and poked around the living room-hardwood floors, curio cabinets, real art on the walls-and then I saw the sign.
DO NOT ENTER UNDER PENALTY OF DEATH!
It was attached to a door. Another gateway to another Hell? If this house was Hell, I could only assume the door led to the Taj Mahal, or something.
I opened the door and stepped through. Suddenly, I was outside. And this outside was familiar. Dishearteningly familiar.
It was the Witness Protection house in Woody Creek-the one that was supposed to have been razed to the ground, as per Special Agent Nevins’ orders. And no doubt, it had been. Only this one was the one from Amy/Alison's memories, locked away where she couldn't (or wouldn't dare) find them.
Alison Larsen's life was stowed away in the back compartments of Amy Langtree's mind. But where did that leave the real Amy? As a cover identity for the real soul, Alison, or a separate and distinct entity herself? And what was housing Amy/Alison-a Brain that could support a collection of souls, like my own Brain? (A Brain that, I remembered, had been hijacked a few hours ago by Brad Larsen.) Or was it an artificial repository?
My God-was Amy real?
For once, I wished I had the Ghost Fieldman here to explain things to me. But of course, he was probably the one who helped build all of this. He and Brad Larsen, in secret alliance to find the killers themselves, letting me poke around in the dark on my own. Brad Larsen was his mission; not me. I felt like a man who's been declared obsolete. All this time I assumed myself to be special, gifted, and it turns out I'm just another schlump spinning his wheels day after day, thinking he's making a difference, but not doing a damn thing worthwhile to anyone. Utterly disposable. A man you could flush down a toilet without an ounce of pity. A nothing man. A dead man.