John said, “You thought it was a hallucination?”
Ted shrugged. “Came back from Iraq, had the PTSD, dreams mostly. Figured … I dunno. Also done some substances in my time, before Maggie was born, but I’ve heard about how that stuff stays in your system. I guess I wanted it to be that and not this other thing. The shit that they say goes on in this town. The reason everybody moved away, the reason I got this house for fifteen grand. I had always figured it was all panic and superstition. I’ve seen plenty of women and little kids torn to pieces, and the culprit wasn’t no monster. Men do it just fine.”
I said, “So, what exactly are you willing to believe?”
“I believe in results. I believe in technique. What you two do, either it works or it don’t. If it don’t, I’ll find somebody else.”
I said, “The way I try to explain it to people is this. You look outside in the daytime and there’s the sun. It’s there, everybody agrees it’s there, everybody knows what it is. But what you don’t realize is that the sun is also really loud. It’s a giant ball of nuclear explosions. Have you ever been really close to a lightning strike? You know that clap of thunder that’s so loud that it almost makes you piss your pants? Imagine hearing something that loud, nonstop, day and night—that’s how loud the sun would be, even from a hundred million miles away. About a hundred and twenty decibels. The only reason you can’t hear it, is because your ears aren’t equipped to—there’s no air in space to carry the sound waves. Do you understand? This universe is full of huge, powerful, noisy things that you just can’t perceive the right way, due to how your sense organs are built. John and I, our senses are a little different than yours, that’s all.”
John said, “It’s kind of like how you can’t hear that your pet goldfish is just constantly screaming, but other fish can. Now this particular guy, Nymph or whatever his name is, he’s not in our database—”
Note: We do not have a database.
“—but everything’s a mystery until it’s not. This looks like what we call a ‘locked room’ abduction. Victim missing, but no sign of entry or exit. We’ve seen a few of them before.”
Ted said, “If you don’t mind me askin’, how many of those times have you found the victim alive?”
“More than you’d think,” answered John. The answer is one, by the way. “When they say the things that happen around here are beyond understanding, that’s not always a bad thing. Sometimes weirdness occurs and everybody is perfectly fine afterward. Maggie could just turn up in her bedroom again, five minutes from now.”
“Is that what you think will happen here?”
Before John could answer, I said, “We don’t think anything right now. We’ve been at this for a while, and here’s what we’ve learned—however you think it’s gonna go, is not how it’s gonna go. About here is where I usually tell people not to get their hopes up, but I don’t think I need to say that—you know what the world is like. So, instead I’m just going to say that we’ll do our best.”
Ted nodded. “Part of the job is that guy, Nymph, whoever he is, we find him and destroy him. Alpha Mike Foxtrot.”
John said, “You can take that to the fuckin’ bank.”
The detective held out his hands and said, “Guys, I’m standing right here.”
Ted said, “So, if this is what we think it is, where do you start looking?”
I thought, good question.
John said, “The fact that he came to you in advance is important. He could have just snatched her in the night, presumably, but there’s a game being played here. So that means there’s a good chance we’ll hear from Nymph—or someone like him—very soon. At that point, we try to figure out exactly what ‘game’ he’s playing. And then—”
I finished for him. “We don’t fucking play it.”
Ted nodded. He seemed to have gained some confidence from this conversation, which meant we had done a good job of concealing the fact that we had no idea what the hell we were doing.
The detective looked at his watch, nodded, and said, “Well, looks like you guys have it handled.”
He turned and strode down the hall and out the front door. I hurried after him.
“Hey! You’re not walking away from this—wait!” He stopped to open the door of the SUV. I put a hand on it to keep it closed and he gave me a look like I was a mosquito he was about to splatter. “Where are you going?”
“Oh, I have to call the feds, of course. We’ll have a team from the FBI here in half an hour, they’ll work with a local task force of a dozen of our finest men!”
He knocked my hand aside and ducked into the passenger seat. He slammed the door and the other cop started the engine. I knocked on the window and he rolled it down.
I asked, “Wait, was that sarcasm?”
“What do you think? I’ll see you boys later. Or not. Who knows? I’m going back to the station.”
“You can’t just walk away from a missing child!”
“Watch us. You think this is my first day on the job? You think this is my first day in this town? You heard the story, even if we don’t exactly know what’s going on, we know enough. If They took her” (I could hear the capital “T” in his voice), “then it’s like trying to rescue an orange after it’s been juiced. Not my monkeys, not my circus.”
“It literally is! This is your job.”
His shoulders slumped. He let out a tired sigh. “You’re right, you’re right. Here, let me give you something. It might help.”
He stuck his right hand inside his jacket, then pulled it out to reveal he had his middle finger extended. He stuck his hand out of the window and sped off down the street singing, “FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YOOOOOOOOOOOUUUU!!!!”
I watched the SUV’s taillights dissolve behind a gray curtain of rain. I would have called the guy’s superiors to complain, but the chief would just say the same thing, only louder.
You might be wondering if the “They” he was just referring to is the same “they” who showed up at John’s place a few weeks ago. The truth is that nobody knows. Lurking behind everything are these walking shadows who can manipulate a human soul as easily as a finger puppet is manipulated by a drunk mime’s penis. Here in our world, there are people who do Their bidding willingly, others who do it unwillingly, and still others who serve Their purposes without even knowing They exist. So, yeah, I admit it probably does make it hard to fill out an arrest warrant.
I sighed and made my way back inside.
As soon as I arrived back in the living room, Ted said, “Thought he’d never leave. So if we’re gonna hear from Nymph, when do you think—”
His cell phone rang.
3. JOY PARK
Ted’s ringtone was “Flight of the Valkyries.” He answered and immediately his expression made it clear who was on the other end. Not “Mister Nymph,” but his little girl.
He squeezed his eyes shut and said, “Oh thank god. Shh … listen. Baby, where are you?” A pause. “What? Hey, tell me where you are…”
John muttered, “Put it on speaker.” Ted tapped his phone and I heard the tinny voice of a little girl, in midsentence.
“We saw Prince Blacktail and we took a picture of him and Betty the Bear and I ate a chocolate pickle on a stick.”
Ted said, “Maggie, where are you? Who are you with?”
“Do you want to talk to Daddy?”
“I’m here, this is me. We’re at home. Where are you?”
“I can’t hear, the people are really loud. It’s really crowded. We’re in line for the Night Wheel.”
Ted looked at us. None of us had any idea what that meant.