ones to call you crazy.”
Which everybody else will agree with. “Okay, but … we need help, Charlie. We’re way out of our league, here. This is a league we didn’t even know existed twenty-four hours ago, and now we’re supposed to compete at a professional level?
Let’s at least try to sign up a few more players!”
Charlie thinks about it. “Like who?”
“How about the sheriff? He already knows something weird is going on. Maybe if we
show him what we’ve found out so far—”
“I wouldn’t recommend that,” Cassiar says quietly.
“Why?” I demand.
“Because Sheriff Stoker is a high-ranking member of the Gallows cult. He is, in fact,
their second-in-command.”
* * *
It’s funny, how the mind works.
You can load it up with all kinds of contradictory information, and it’ll adapt. You
can overload it with sensory input, and it’ll adapt. You can deprive it of any input
at all, and it’ll adapt. It’s based in three pounds of jellylike flesh that’s mostly
water, and is capable of producing art, mathematics, language, and emotion.
But it has its limits.
I thought I was doing fine. Supernatural beings, my TV talking to me, evil cults out
for my blood … but somehow, the simple fact that Sheriff Stoker is one of the bad
guys just stops me dead. I got used to the idea of reality not being trustworthy a
while ago, but the notion that someone I respect—and yes, I do respect cops, believe
it or not—is a genuine Bad Guy just knocks the wind out of me. It hits me on a much
deeper level than a nasty revelation; it feels like a personal betrayal.
“I have to go,” I say. My voice sounds flat and unreal, like a bad recording. I’m
out of the room and halfway down the stairs before Charlie catches up with me. He
doesn’t try to stop me, just says, “Jace? Are you okay?”
“No,” I say. My voice sounds puzzled, but a little relieved, too. I don’t feel either
of those things. “I need to go home.”
“Okay, we can do that—”
“Alone, Charlie. I need to be alone.” That isn’t true, I know it isn’t true, but I can’t explain. Not even to Charlie. “Stay here, talk to Mr.
Cassiar. See if you can come up with a plan.”
“I don’t think you being alone is such a good idea right now—”
I’m already out the front door and down the porch steps. “Come by before it gets dark.
Zhang won’t do anything before then.”
“I … all right. Just be careful, okay?”
I nod, but don’t look back. I need to go home.
I need my shows.
* * *
I remember.
I remember the last time I felt this way. It was when I had my breakdown, when they
had to take me away in an ambulance and sedate me. That was the last time I felt this …
shattered.
My memories of the event have always been fragmented. Little bits of broken-glass
sharpness mixed into a thick, murky broth of amnesia, like a stew made of mirror shards
and tapioca. I remember the jab of the needle. I remember the way the blood spurted
when I broke the EMT’s nose. I remember being very, very concerned that nobody touch
the remote.
But I didn’t remember the breakdown itself. Not until right now.
Everything’s very far away. My thoughts are very loud, and I don’t have a lot of control
over them; they jump from subject to subject, memory and imagination blurring together,
making random connections. A small, quiet part of me is watching this happen, like
someone watching TV. That’s the part that’s in control of my body, making me walk
to my house, unlock the door, breeze past Galahad, and unearth my stash. Not the regular
one, under the fridge; my secret stash.
It consists of exactly one DVD in a paper envelope, and it’s duct-taped to the underside
of a bookshelf. It’s the one I watched over and over again, the one that convinced
me I was somebody else, the one I swore I’d never watch again.
It’s also the very first time the
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