The Nobody People by Bob Proehl (manga ereader TXT) 📕

the same gun he has at home. What good is it going to do you? What are bullets to a man made out of rubber? But there’s a comfort in having it, seeing it on the passenger seat next to him.

The address is easy to find. Kevin Bishop is listed in the phone book. 2246 Oceanside Way. He thinks about this enclave of Resonants hiding in plain sight, shielded by their money. What would Kevin Bishop have been if he wasn’t rich? What would the world have looked like if Kevin Bishop hadn’t possessed the resources to hide them all?

Avi listens to talk radio the whole drive. On a Kindred Network station, a new Jefferson Hargrave, one lacking the original’s veneer of civility, is calling for open war. He’s calling for extermination squads. He’s calling for an attack on the Bishop Academy, “a nest of them right in the middle of Manhattan. Burn it down. Burn them out.”

Avi parks in front of the little bungalow. He fumbles bullets into the gun, four of them, before his shaking hands make the exercise ridiculous. He shoves another fistful into his pocket, tucks the gun into the back of his belt. He shuts the car door quietly and goes up the walk. Communities like this, you don’t need to lock the front door. Oceanside Way is a bubble of another time, when people felt safe around each other. Avi lets himself in.

The living room is decorated with beach kitsch. A miniature ship’s wheel. A stuffed gull. There are pictures of Kevin Bishop when he was younger. With faculty and students at what looks like a softball game. With Fahima and Sarah at a bar, wearing a paper party hat. Avi picks one up. It’s a faded sepia shot of two men in dark suits and fedoras in front of a massive scaffold in the desert that is topped with a huge metal globe. The wire-rimmed glasses identify the man on the left as Bishop, in his midtwenties. The other man Avi doesn’t recognize. He’s shorter with dark hair and the square jaw of a silent film star. Written in the lower corner it says, KEVIN, RAYMOND & THE GADGET. ON THE HILL. JULY 1945.

Avi sets down the picture and looks around. He can hear music from down one of the halls. Something soft and folky. He draws the gun and follows it. He tries to be as quiet as he can, but his prosthetic clunks on the hardwood like a peg leg on a ship’s deck. He stops in front of a closed door, the source of the music. Avi focuses his attention on placing the song. A bit of lyric floats toward him. James Taylor’s buttery voice, assuring the listeners they’ve got a friend. The soundtrack is wrong, Avi thinks. It should be something ominous and terrible. Black metal. A wavering minor chord. The disconnect between song and situation makes whatever’s behind the door more threatening, a cuddly thing with insides of razors and teeth. He rests his hand on the doorknob and turns it slowly.

The room looks like a dorm room at an expensive private school but divided by a sheet of heavy glass. A keypad lock and an intercom are set into the glass. The room is bathed in green light. One large window looks out onto the ocean. Owen Curry reclines on the bed, scratching words in a notebook, uninterested in the scenery. Avi approaches the glass. He taps it with the barrel of the gun, a sound like teeth dropping into a metal bowl. Owen looks up.

Avi presses the button on the intercom. “Nice to see you again, Owen.”

Owen glances over. “I remember you. You’re the reporter. You came and saw me when I was in that cage.”

“Looks like you’re still in a cage,” Avi says.

“I’m healing,” Owen says. “Getting ready for big things. Even bigger.”

“Can you get out?”

Owen shakes his head. “Lock’s right there.”

“Then it’s a cage.” A hateful look passes over the boy’s face. It’s replaced by that same smug grin. “You killed my wife,” Avi says.

“Could have. I killed lots of people.” He swings his legs over the edge of the bed and points at the keypad. “Seven seven three four. Come on in. I’ll send you to see your wife. It might take you a while to find her.” He pats his belly. “It’s crowded in here. But you’ll have plenty of time. You’ll have forever.”

Avi pauses. She’s alive, he thinks. Kay is somewhere inside this monster. If I let him take me, I can get her out. I can save her.

Owen grins sickly. There’s no limbo inside him. Powder Basin is dead. The girl and the pastor from Salem Baptist are dead. The people in the mall food court. Kay’s dead.

Owen Curry killed her.

Avi types in seven seven three four.

The hum stops. The green light goes out.

Owen’s grin widens, showing teeth. “Shit,” he says. “That’s not the door code. That’s the code that shuts off the inhibitor. Sorry about that.”

The glass disappears in a perfect circle. Owen lunges for the opening, eyes wild, arms extended like he’s going to grab Avi and shove him into whatever void is at Owen’s center. Avi levels the gun in his left hand, steadying himself with his cane. His right arm goes numb up to the shoulder and his balance slips, but he recovers and fires three shots. The recoil knocks him onto the floor. The first two hit Owen in the chest, and the third hits the center of his forehead, snapping his head back. Wet chunks spatter across the bed and the window. Owen’s body drops back, hitting the bed and slumping to the floor. The echo of the shots rings in Avi’s ears. Pools of blood spread on the plush carpet under the body.

It’s the body of a boy, not a monster.

I thought I’d feel something, Avi thinks. I thought I’d feel fixed.

He notices calmly that his right arm is gone, cleanly bitten away