it’s beyond my control, like I’m being bounced around inside a goddamn
cosmic pinball machine. It exhausts me. It’s killing me. You can see
how it’s killing me.”
Frank’s earnest persistence and the numbing, relentless roar of the rain
had washed away Bobby’s rage. He was still somewhat afraid of Frank, of
the potential for chaos that Frank represented, but he was no longer
angry.
“Years ago,” Frank said, “dreams started me traveling maybe one night a
month, but gradually the frequency increased, until the last few weeks
it happens almost every time I go to sleep. And when we finally wind up
in your office or wherever this episode is going to come to an end,
you’ll remember everything that’s happened to us, but I won’t. And not
only because I want to forget, but because what you suspected is
true-I’m not always putting myself back together without mistakes.”
“Your mental confusion, loss of intellectual skills, amnesia-they’re
symptoms of those mistakes.”
“Yeah. I’m sure there’s sloppy reconstruction and cell damage every
time I travel, nothing dramatic in any one trip, but the effect is
incremental… and accelerating. Sooner or later it’s going to go
critical, and I’ll either die or experience some weird biological
meltdown. Coming to you for help was pointless, no matter how good you
are at what you do, because nobody can help me. Nobody-
Bobby had already reached that conclusion, but he was still curious.
“What is it with your family, Frank? Your brother has the power to make
that car disintegrate around you, then A power to blow out those street
lamps, and he can teleport.
what was that business with the cats?”
“My sisters, the twins, they have this thing with animals.”
“How come all of you possess these… abilities? Who your mother, your
father?”
“We don’t have time for that now, Bobby. Later. I’ll try and explain
later.”
He held out his cut hand, which had even stopped bleeding or was sluiced
free of blood by the rain could pop out of here any moment, and you’d be
stranded.”
“No thanks,” Bobby said, shunning his client’s hand.
” me an old fuddy-duddy, but I’d prefer an airliner.” He pa his hip
pocket.
“Got my wallet, credit cards. I can be back in Orange County tomorrow,
and I don’t have to take a chance that I’ll arrive there with my left
ear where my nose should be.”
“But Candy’s probably going to follow us, Bobby. If you’re here when he
shows up, he’ll kill you,”
Bobby turned to his right and started to walk toward the distant
restaurant.
“I’m not afraid of anyone named Candy.”
“You better be,” Frank said, grabbing his arm and halting him.
Jerking away as if making contact with his client was tantamount to
contracting the bubonic plague, Bobby said, could he follow us anyway?”
When Frank worriedly surveyed the beach again, Bobby realized that
because of the pounding rain and the underly crash of the surf, they
might not hear the telltale flute sounds that would warn them of Candy’s
imminent arrival.
Frank said, “Sometimes, when he touches something recently touched, he
sees an image of you in his mind, sometimes he can see where you went
after you put the object down, and he can follow you.”
“But I didn’t touch anything back there at the house.”
“You stood on the back lawn.”
“So?”
“If he can find the place where the grass is trampled, where we stood,
he might be able to put his fingers to the ground and see us, see this
place, and come after us.”
“For God’s sake, Frank, you make this guy sound super natural.”
“He’s the next thing to it.”
Bobby almost said he would take his chances with brother Candy,
regardless of his godlike powers. Then he remembered what the Phans had
told him about the savage murders of the Farris family. He also
remembered the Roman family, their brutalized bodies torched to cover
the ragged gashes that Candy’s teeth had torn in their throats. He
recalled what Frank had said about Candy offering him the fresh blood of
a living baby, factored in the unmitigated terror in Frank’s eyes at