Chapter 2 Marc #3
Marc growls. Kimble is already laughing and he can’t help snorting in return, because he’s not really mad and Kimble’s not really being mean.
She often annoys him like this when he gets all twisted up inside.
It gives him focus. He can never tell whether she knows this and is doing it to help him – or not.
‘They don’t let anyone near the gate,’ he says. ‘Maybe it’s over before it starts.’
Kimble looks into the fire and smiles. ‘I’ve been trying to say—’
He feels a hard stab of excitement. ‘You found the back door.’
She hums, making him wait. ‘I was busy while you were drinking.’
‘Where is it?’ His mind is turning over and over. He feels anxious, excited, sick.
‘I’ll show you tomorrow,’ she says. ‘Nighty night, Marky Mark.’ Kimble stands. ‘I’m taking the back seat.’ Vaguely, against the sound of crickets he hears her brushing her teeth, spitting into the forest. Fireflies move above in the forest canopy.
Marc eases himself quietly into the back of the van.
He lifts his trouser leg and gently removes his prosthetic and the liner.
He cleans the blunt place where his shin ends with an antibacterial wipe and then cleans the socket of the prosthetic.
He realises that he forgot to bring lotion.
The stump aches, it tells the tale of a long day.
Marc makes a small noise of frustration.
The pain is deep and massaging it with lotion is the only thing that helps.
‘Jesus.’ Kimble’s voice is thick with sleep. ‘Is that a buffalo herd? Or a marching band firing guns next my head? So much noise.’ Kimble doesn’t like being woken up.
‘Sorry.’ It takes him a moment before he sees her hand sticking over the back of the seat. She groans and drops something which falls by his feet. It’s her fancy mineral vitamin E lotion.
‘Thanks, Kimble,’ he whispers.
‘Shhh please now, shut up shut up.’
The hardware store has a hand-painted sign out front. Inside it is deserted.
A bald guy sweeps the linoleum floor in slow, sad strokes. He’s thick with muscle. A rose tattoo winds red and green around his neck. Behind him, dirty paper ribbons flutter in the wheezy air conditioning, leading to the stock room, as dark as a lion’s den.
‘Doesn’t look like much of a back door,’ Marc says.
‘You haven’t met him yet. Linus,’ Kimble calls.
The bald man lifts his head and fixes them with a level hard gaze.
‘Wait,’ Marc says. ‘How?’ The back door is a person.
Kimble flicks Marc a look. She takes off her sweater and hands it to him. It’s their code for I got this. She goes to the man, easy. ‘Hey. Remember me?’
‘No way.’ The guy turns back to the dark storeroom. ‘I already told you.’
‘I know,’ she says. ‘But I have this disorder. It’s a bad one.’
‘Uh. I’m sorry.’ He sounds it, really.
‘It might finish me in the end.’
‘What,’ the man asks, awkwardly, ‘exactly—’
‘I can’t hear the word no,’ she smiles. ‘Doesn’t matter how many times someone says it I just – can’t hear it. So I come back again and again, like a curse. I never leave you alone.’
He gives a reluctant cough of laughter.
‘It’s an affliction.’ Kimble nods towards the back. ‘You got time for a smoke?’
He hesitates.
‘It’s just a smoke.’ Kimble is honey, voice dripping with it, but also giving him space, letting him feel it’s his decision.
‘Uh,’ says Linus. ‘I have a break coming up.’
The afternoon sun has warmed the red brick wall behind the store. Instinctively, they all three lean their backs against it.
‘I’m Marc.’
‘Linus.’ In their handshake Marc feels the great size and strength of Linus’s fingers, the many calluses. Linus offers a pack of cigarettes and Marc takes one, grateful. Kimble shakes her head. Marc and Linus smoke.
‘People who see them say they dress like they’re from another time,’ Linus says. ‘Sneakers, flares, old football jerseys. You usually only see one at a time. Two, maybe, I’m not sure.’
‘When they come down, do they take – anything – else?’
Linus smiles. ‘Oh yeah. People, right? Every year one or two claim it. Some say it’s the runaway husband’s excuse.’ Linus draws deep on his cigarette. Smoke wreathes about his face.
‘They come back with injuries.’ Marc thinks of the healing scars on Annie’s pale skin.
‘I don’t know if they’re even still up there, the Nowhere children.’ Linus shrugs. ‘They might have all died.’
‘You just said they come down dumpster diving.’
‘Impossible things can become real,’ Linus says. ‘They exist now. We brought them to life. Even if it is them who come down to steal expired Tylenol and baby food – how are they still children? How can they still be children after all these years?’
‘They’re not the same kids, obviously.’ Even Marc hears the edge in his voice. ‘This is what you were doing yesterday, Kimble?’
‘Marc,’ Kimble says, polite. ‘You got low blood sugar? You need a snack or something?’
Marc pushes himself away from the wall, turns and grinds out his cigarette. ‘Tail’s come off. Thanks for your time,’ he says to Linus. Many people have opinions about the Nowhere children, most of them want to be on TV.
Kimble smiles. ‘Please,’ she says quietly and puts a hand on Linus’s arm. ‘You don’t have to do anything. Just tell him what you told me last night. Otherwise my boss has dragged me out here to Colorado all for nothing.’
‘I guess it’s the tunnel,’ Linus says. ‘The one Leaf Winham got out by. I think I can find it again. But don’t know if I can go back there.’
‘Again?’ Marc asks, polite. ‘Back there?’
‘After last time,’ Linus says, apologetic. ‘Leaf Winham was trying to kill me when he died.’
Marc feels everything in his body go still.
Linus stubs his cigarette out on the wall, the black ashy stain right next to Marc’s.
Sunlight catches his jaw, his collarbone, the tendons of his neck.
Marc sees it suddenly, like a magic eye picture – the scars.
They are almost but not quite covered by the rose tattoo.
They spread and branch over Linus’s throat.
‘People always want to talk about that day,’ Linus says. ‘I guess it’s normal but I can’t. So I keep to myself. Like I said, I want to find it – and I don’t.’
‘It must be hard.’ Marc summons it, the shine, the thing that makes people trust and love you.
He doesn’t like to do it – it’s manipulative, even embarrassing maybe.
It raises old memories he would rather leave behind.
He much prefers to let people pass on by, to be an empty house with blank windows.
But right now he will do anything to get what he wants.
So for a moment Marc lets himself feel all his love for Silvie, allows it to show in his face and eyes so that Linus sees it too and thinks he’s a real human being.
‘I’m not going to lie to you. We want to talk about it too, man. ’
‘I don’t know.’ Linus’s words are slow. Marc feels it working on Linus, the magic, the sun.
‘It’s your call.’ Marc shrugs. ‘But this is your story. You should get the chance to tell it your way.’
‘I don’t know,’ Linus says again.
‘Ok,’ Marc says. ‘Different question. What would bring you back? What could – if you ever decided to – take us up there?’ Marc asks.
‘Ten thousand dollars?’ Kimble says, easy.
‘What?’ Linus’s eyes are wide.
Marc can see the child he once was. Doesn’t matter, he thinks, shoving down the guilt. Lizard tail. Lizard tail.
‘That’s right,’ Marc says. Neither he nor Kimble has ten thousand dollars but this is the kind of bridge they are used to crossing when they come to it. Though Kimble usually doesn’t set such a high figure.
Linus takes another cigarette from the pack, looks at it, then slides it back in.
‘Sometimes I think I dreamed it all. The fire, that day. Him, leaning over me. If the fire engine hadn’t come down the road at that moment, I would be dead.
Leaf Winham cut his own throat when he saw them, you know.
He was right on top of me so – his blood was all over, it ran down my face.
It was so hot, I hadn’t expected blood to be …
I still taste it, sometimes. I dream about it trickling down my cheeks, up my nose, into the cut he made in my neck.
’ Linus fingers the scar at his throat. ‘You don’t know what it’s like up there.
Reality – it gets kind of – thin. Maybe I’d like proof.
Witnesses. Maybe if you film it – if we find that way into Nowhere – I’ll know I’m not crazy.
’ He looks away. ‘I get stalkers, you know? Death threats. Marriage proposals. All for twenty minutes that happened so long ago.’
‘You were part of something important,’ Marc says. ‘People respond to that.’
‘I guess,’ Linus says. He rubs the back of his neck so the grey hair stands up like the crest of a parrot.
‘Do you mind if we shoot this conversation?’ Marc asks.
‘I guess not,’ Linus says.
Marc nods to Kimble, who turns and runs without a word towards the end of the alley where they left the van.
‘Ok,’ Marc says to Linus. ‘When she gets back, you’re going to say all that again, exactly as you just did, for the camera.’
‘I want half the money upfront,’ Linus says.
‘Not possible,’ Marc says. ‘Payment on return. Take it or leave it. We’ll draw up a contract to make it official.’ He smiles easily into Linus’s eyes, who smiles back in a lopsided, surprised way. Marc doesn’t often smile and people are startled by it.
Kimble comes back with the gear and sets up. Linus pulls out another cigarette then puts it away again. He’s nervous. Everyone is stiff in front of the camera at first. Then they get used to it, stop noticing it, even.
Kimble talks soothingly to Linus, makes him laugh a little, gets the mic under his collar. Over his shoulder she gives Marc a quick grin. Marc feels the spread of relief. It’s ok, he and Kimble are on the same team again.
Marc needs Kimble. She is the only person who’s ever come close to knowing who he is. It’s frightening when he suspects she doesn’t need him in the same way.