The Fading Read online

  The cop froze at the sound of his voice, mouth open, awestruck.

  There was no time. Sylvester would not stay frozen for long. Noel saw no other choice, didn’t consider but this one.

  He ran full-tilt, lowering his shoulder and screaming just before he slammed into the man’s chest. The top of Noel’s head connected with M. Sylvester’s red-bearded chin, snapping his head back. Noel toppled forward (or was dragged down) as the cop landed on his back. He tried to shove off and run but Sylvester had a hold of his jacket and they fought against each other, a sliding tangle of limbs and shouts.

  M. Sylvester’s right arm sprang free, waving the gun.

  Noel leaped to the side, reaching for the arm, wrestling it like a fire hose. Something hard and strong slammed into his ribs once, twice, slugging him with breathtaking force, and then his right ear went numb as the punches were thrown higher. Ears ringing, dizzy and coughing, he fell on the gun and rolled, pinning the arm for a moment before it sunk deeper into the snow.

  M. Sylvester scrambled away empty-handed. Noel felt something hard like a rock against his chest, rolled off to find it was the gun. Things were out of control, he only wanted to stop this before someone got hurt. He clawed into the snow, got the gun in hand, but not its grip. He might have been holding it sideways when the policeman withdrew his baton and lunged, striking the air, then Noel, repeatedly. The wooden club smacked against Noel’s back, ribs, a shoulder blade, and Noel heaved himself across the snow, rolling and rolling as the cop knee-walked after him, grunting, shouting, cursing as the black stick came down on Noel’s hip with a sharp crack. He screamed in agony and rolled onto his back, preparing to surrender. He raised his fists to block the next blow, the gun turning on the ‘air’ of his invisible hands.

  Sylvester got one foot under him, and lashed out again, striking Noel in the forearm. The pain was a lightning bolt spearing up his arm, through his neck and jaw, and shot boomed between them.

  The cop rocked back on his knees as his neck opened at the throat. A spume of dark blood arced forth, splattering the snow and Noel’s legs. After the first few heavy spurts the surge filled the wider wound and drained down the cop’s jacket in a sheet. He reached for his throat, choking on his own blood, and the baton fell in his lap. He balanced on his knees for a few seconds, then fell to his side, the blue-clothed body coughing and thrashing violently. The snow piled up into his beard and open mouth as the flowing red melted a small canyon down through the white powder.

  By the time Noel threw the gun aside and crawled over to turn the man on his back, removing his parka to use one of the sleeves as a compress, Officer M. Sylvester’s teary eyes were glazed over and did not blink as more flakes caught on their lashes, shrinking with the body’s evacuating heat until they dripped and flowed into the sockets like reversed tears.

  23

  ‘Julie! Open up!’ Noel beat an invisible fist against Julie’s front door.

  A female voice called from the other side, growing louder as she neared. ‘… are you still sleeping? There’s a man. He’s yelling.’

  ‘Julie! Open the—’

  The door was yanked open, but it wasn’t Julie who stood glaring at him, then frowning in confusion when she realized there was no ‘him’ here. This girl was taller, with highlighted brown hair, the bulging lip-jaw orthodontia of a child sucking on a wedge of orange after a soccer game, and blocky black-framed glasses. With the navy skirt, matching blazer, hose and heels, she had the affect of someone’s stern mother, and maybe that was the kind of roommate she was. Marna. Probably on her lunch break.

  He didn’t have time for a proper introduction.

  ‘Julie!’ Noel called past her, and Marna yelped in surprise, her glasses slipping down her nose. He pushed past her and she yelped again as he bumped her against the door. ‘Where is she?’ he bawled, forging on through the living room, into the kitchen.

  Julie staggered out of her bedroom, bleary-eyed. ‘What? Why are you shouting?’

  ‘Here’s your pills,’ Noel said, and a small brown prescription bottle with a white cap spun into existence, planting itself in Julie’s hand. He released her wrist, took the other and slapped her keys into the other palm. ‘I need a ride. Right now.’

  Julie said, ‘Why’d it take you so long? I was worried—’

  ‘It’s an emergency, trust me on that. Can you drive or should I ask Marna?’

  Marna had pinned herself to the wall and was fumbling her glasses, these things that might have just played a nasty trick on her. Hearing her name, she gave up and looked to Julie as if a ghost had just tickled her under the chin. Her mouth opened but all that came out was a little squeak.

  ‘It’s not what it looks like,’ Julie said to Marna. ‘I can explain.’

  ‘I … I’m late for work.’ Marna shimmied over to the coffee table, snatched up her purse and bolted out the door.

  Julie stared after her numbly, probably calculating how her next conversation with her roommate might go.

  ‘I’m in deep shit,’ Noel said. ‘Take your pill and let’s go.’

  Julie turned toward him, eyes searching.

  ‘Now!’ Noel yelled, and she jumped.

  ‘Okay, okay, my coat.’ She ran into her room. ‘Where’s my coat? My keys?’

  ‘I put them in your hand,’ Noel said.

  ‘You drove? How did you drive?’

  ‘I took a chance. I couldn’t afford to walk all the way back. You needed your pills and I need to get home. The police are looking for me. Or will be soon.’

  She came out of her bedroom, hopping on one foot as she pulled the second boot on. ‘The police? What are you talking about? What happened?’ Booted, she rushed toward the door. He caught her arm, pulled her back into the kitchen.

  ‘Take your medicine first.’

  She did. They left.

  ‘It’s better if you don’t know,’ he told her in the car. She was driving fast up Baseline, after he told her to go the long route, away from the park. ‘And slow down.’

  ‘You told me to hurry.’

  ‘Not so much that we get pulled over or crash.’

  She slowed a bit and they barely made it through the yellow light at the 28th Street overpass. ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘On Canyon. Between eighteenth and nineteenth, but you’re gonna take Broadway down to that little hook that goes by the high school so we can go in the back way.’ He doubted they would have any evidence or leads that could point to him so soon, but that didn’t matter. He needed to sneak in and get out fast.

  Julie focused on the road, hands twitching around the wheel. ‘Why can’t you tell me? You can trust me.’

  ‘This is bad, Julie. Really fucking bad.’

  ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘Someone else is.’

  She moaned. ‘It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have let you go.’

  ‘I got sloppy, wasn’t thinking. I got trapped, and there were other ways I could’ve handled that. None of this is your fault.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘What are you going to do? You shouldn’t be alone, not while you’re still …’

  ‘I have to be.’

  ‘You can’t drive. Let me stay with you, at least until it stops.’

  ‘It’s never going to stop,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, it will. It will, right? I don’t have to know what happened. Just let me help.’

  ‘There’s always going to be another – watch the light!’

  Julie hit the brakes and the brakes locked up. The road had been plowed but was still covered by half an inch of glossy, compacted snow. They began to slide, the Honda’s rear end kicking to the left. The intersection of Broadway and College loomed like a narrow doorway – braking cars on the left, a crosswalk about to be filled with students on the right, and one open but narrow lane in the middle.

  ‘Let up, let up!’ he said. ‘Just go!’

  ‘Oh, my God!’ She traded brakes for gas.

  The Honda righted
itself. The light turned red. Noel reached across and jammed the horn. Students leaped out of the way as the Honda sailed through and more horns popped off around them. A lumbering dump truck braked in the intersection on Julie’s side and they missed being broadsided by several tons of steel and sand, by inches.

  ‘Okay, okay, we’re okay,’ Noel said.

  Julie was too rattled to speak.

  ‘Almost there,’ he said. ‘Easy does it. I’m sorry.’

  A few blocks later she said, ‘What do you need at your apartment?’

  ‘Money. My truck.’

  ‘But where are you going?’

  ‘The mountains.’

  ‘“The mountains?”’ What, you’re going to live off the land?’

  ‘I don’t know! I’ll figure it out. Staying in Boulder is no longer an option. Not ever again.’

  Julie stole a glance his way. ‘Did you – is someone …’ dead?

  ‘Yes.’

  She didn’t ask him any more questions until they got to the apartment.

  ‘You can go now,’ he said as she nosed into the rear lot, back by the dumpsters and the tree-lined creek.

  ‘How much money do you have?’

  ‘Enough for a while.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘I don’t need your money, Julie.’

  ‘How much!’

  ‘Sixteen, seventeen thousand.’

  ‘How did you—’

  He cut her off. ‘I don’t have time for this.’

  ‘All right.’

  He got out. She turned the engine off and followed.

  ‘No, uh-uh, back in the car.’

  ‘I’ll leave in five minutes,’ she said. ‘Or when you do. Just let me come inside for a minute.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I have to pee.’ She clenched her knees together.

  Noel shook his head, not that she could see it, and let her follow.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ she said, covering her mouth.

  ‘What?’

  He came back from the bathroom, where he had just fished the Ziploc baggie full of cash from the toilet’s tank, to find her staring at his re-manifested clothing on the bedroom floor. One sleeve of the parka was streaked with blood. His pants and socks were soaked with it.

  Noel said, ‘Oh, shit, I almost forgot. I have to take a shower.’

  ‘A shower?’

  ‘If I reappear when someone’s around. I’m probably covered with that.’

  Julie sat on his bed, dazed.

  He came back and crouched, setting his hands on her knees.

  ‘Go home, Julie. Please. If you want to help me, forget what you’ve seen. I never found you the other night. You know nothing.’

  ‘I want to know what happened to you,’ she said.

  ‘What happened to me? Okay. This is what happened to me. It happened a long time ago, it’s happening now, and it’s going to keep on happening as long as whatever this thing is wants me. I’m a fucking monster, Julie. There’s no other word for what I am. I ruin lives.’

  ‘Don’t say that. It’s not your fault.’

  ‘No? How about, I took a walk through the park this morning and now a police officer is dead. That’s his blood, and he’s gone. Now you need to leave before someone finds me and you get hurt, because I might be able to live with this, but I can’t live with the next one getting hurt or killed being you. Do you understand?’

  She didn’t respond.

  ‘Your mother is paralyzed because of what I am, and I can’t change that. But I can leave before it happens to you, too. I’m going to shower now, then I’m going to put on clean clothes, line my car windows with trash bags, and pray I don’t get pulled over before I get into the foothills. Now, be smart and go.’

  She was crying again. He started to rise and head for the shower, but she found his hand and squeezed. He tried to pull away, but she wouldn’t let go. She stared up at him, touching his face to locate him and speak with him.

  ‘Listen to me,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t have time—’

  ‘Listen!’

  He shut up.

  ‘It’s partly my fault you’re in this mess. You don’t know what this is and you don’t have any control over it. It’s been that way since you could remember. No one can be expected … your family abandoned you. Our family. It’s not your fault you never knew how to deal with this. You never meant to hurt anybody. You’re just trying to get by and whatever happened today, it was an accident.’

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘I know you. I know what you’re like. You helped me. You helped me when I needed help so badly.’

  ‘I walked you home, Julie. And now, this? This isn’t helping you at all.’

  ‘No, you don’t understand. I didn’t get a chance to tell you, but I’m finished here,’ she said. ‘I got kicked out of school. My grades are trashed. What you saw the other night, at the party? That was me. That’s what I’ve been doing. Last week I counted how many different drugs I had taken in the span of five days. Do you know how many? Seven. Not including my stupid prescription. I’m not bi-polar, Noel. Or if I really am, I can’t tell because I’m too busy being a stupid party girl who let it all get out of control. If I don’t get away from these people soon, if I don’t leave Boulder, I’m going to get into something I can’t get out of.’

  ‘And I’m the worst drug you could have lying around right now,’ he said.

  ‘No. Not at all. You came to me and – don’t you laugh, don’t you dare laugh when I say this – I thought you were an angel. I really believed that, and then when I sobered up and I saw that it was you, I realized that’s exactly what this was. I’m choosing that. I have to choose that.’

  ‘Angels don’t kill people, Julie.’

  Crack! Her hand slapped him across the face before he even saw it leave her side.

  ‘Whoa.’ His eyes began to water. ‘That hurt.’

  ‘Don’t ever say that again,’ she said. ‘All of this is an accident. No one deserves this. God or someone with His powers and His taste for suffering made you this way. You didn’t choose this, not the way I chose to throw away my education and start taking every pill and powder I could find. This thing, whatever it is, it isn’t you. It’s a problem and it can be dealt with.’

  ‘There’s nothing that can be—’

  Julie raised her hand again, and Noel shut up.

  ‘This isn’t you,’ she said. ‘Any more than the drugs and my problems are all me. Because if that’s the case, if there’s no help, if we are what we do and we can’t change that, and there’s no one there to help us, Noel, then what’s the point?’

  He couldn’t think of anything.

  She stepped forward, reached up and took his face in both hands. ‘I remember those two weeks when we were fourteen. The way you used to look at me. Do you know that no one’s ever looked at me that way? Not in my whole life. I know why you came looking for me. Well, you found me. We’re both pretty fucked up right now, but what if someday we’re not? What if we can help each other be better? Get better and find a way to live with it?’

  ‘I can’t ask you to do this,’ he said.

  ‘You’re not asking. I’m telling you. Now get in the shower. Get dressed. I’ll pack your clothes and some food and water. I’ll drive you wherever you want to go.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘And then we’ll figure the rest out when we get there.’

  Noel ran the water as hot as he could stand it.

  When he was dressed and his arm was wrapped in fresh gauze, he went downstairs to find Julie in the living room, his backpack and another packed duffel waiting at her feet. She had put the bloody clothes in a trash bag.

  ‘What about the parents?’ he said. ‘My dad’s expecting a call from me about you. He’s probably worried sick.’

  ‘I talked to them while you were in the shower.’ She smiled. ‘It’s taken care of.’

  She was too calm. He asked, ‘How
fast does that pill work, anyway?’

  ‘It’s not the pill,’ Julie said. ‘I’m scared out of my mind. Or I guess back into it.’

  ‘Apparently,’ Noel said. ‘What did you tell them?’

  ‘I apologized for not keeping in touch, thanked them for having my big brother check up on me, and promised them I was going to get some treatment and take night classes until I got readmitted.’

  ‘And they believed you?’

  ‘John said I should use the credit card to buy you dinner. He said I owe you one, and he does, too.’

  Noel took the 4-Runner keys from the salad bowl on his counter and dangled them where she could see them. ‘Get me as far as Glenwood Springs and we’ll be more than even.’

  ‘I thought of some place better.’ Julie took the keys and hefted the duffel into his arms. Wearing the backpack and one of his baseball caps she had scrounged from the closet, she looked like a Girl Scout preparing for an overnight. ‘Some place where we can both disappear, no matter what condition we’re in.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ He held the door open for her. ‘Where would that be?’

  ‘You’ll know it when you see it.’

  Noel didn’t bother locking the door behind them. He owned nothing of value besides the truck and the last of his cash reserves. He said goodbye to his apartment and the town he had grown up in, and never saw either of them again.

  Julie had been driving west for a little more than thirteen hours when Noel saw it. He sat up in the passenger seat and said, ‘That’s your idea? Have you lost your mind?’

  ‘We’re still half an hour out.’ Julie yawned, staring ahead into the desert darkness. ‘Think about it. Really think about the possibilities, and then tell me you have a better idea.’

  Noel thought about it for almost five miles. Julie yawned again.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he said at last. ‘And normally I would agree. The potential is enormous, almost too much to even take seriously.’

  ‘I’m very serious,’ she said. ‘And you should be, too. This is the best idea I’ve ever had.’

  ‘There’s just one problem.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m not the same person I was when we dropped down out of the Rockies.’