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

Danny didn’t answer. He stepped past her into the living room. The other men followed, crowding in until Lucy was pressed against the wall. Woken by the noise, the four Guthridge children stood in the hallway that led to their bedrooms. Sam was in a tee shirt and baggy shorts. He looked, Scott Lipscombe thought, like a boy. It was easy to miss that working alongside him, but now, thin limbs jutting out of clothes that were once his father’s, Sam didn’t look old enough to drive. His younger brother, Jeb, was in flannel pajamas, and the girls, Melody and Paige, were both in nightgowns. The three little ones huddled behind Sam, who held his hands stiff at his sides, fists clenched.

“Come with us, son,” Danny said.

“Not your son,” said Sam. He didn’t move. Paige coughed, shaking off a cold she’d picked up at school. Little Jeb patted her back and rubbed it, then put his hands at his sides, fists tight like his big brother.

The room seethed with drunk energy. Marc Medina giggled nervously, and Alvin McLaughlin shushed him. Scott Lipscombe had his twelve-gauge hanging at the end of his arm, chambers full of rock salt. He felt a fat bead of nervous sweat roll down his temple, and he raised the gun to wipe it with his sleeve. That was when he saw it. He was sure he did. A blue glint in Sam’s eye. He remembered the smell of rock burning as the light cut through it. He imagined himself sliced in two and wondered what burnt-meat smell his own body would give off. If the smoke would hit his nostrils before he died.

He emptied two chambers of rock salt into Sam Guthridge’s gut.

Sam doubled over, the wind knocked out of him. Lucy pitched forward toward Scott, but Alvin McLaughlin grabbed her around the waist and spun her like a drunken dance partner. Paige, the littlest one, screamed. She held the side of her face where she’d been struck. She pulled her hand away to check for blood.

There was none. Where the salt crystals had hit, seven on her cheek and forehead, bright blue light shone through punctured skin.

“Shit,” said Danny, “it’s all of them.”

—

When the fire burned itself out, the men dispersed. Most went home, where they lay awake next to their wives until dawn. Their minds were full of sounds that would wake them some nights for what was left of their lives.

A small knot, Danny and Joe and a couple of others, took bottles to the mouth of Shaft L. It was blocked off. The fence was a row of sickly teeth. It was the only time the men would talk about what had happened.

“Those lights in her head,” said Scott Lipscombe. “They reminded me of a toy I had when I was a kid.”

“Lite Brite,” Danny said. “I thought that, too.” He could picture the lights, the way they traced jagged lines in the dim room as Paige Guthridge’s body hitched with sobs. Every time the men cut her, light poured out of the wounds. Danny Randall thought that when she died, the lights would fade like in a theater at the start of a movie. But they went out suddenly, like a candle.

The phone on the nightstand buzzes and pulls Avi Hirsch up from a dream of being tossed in the air and falling, tossed and falling. The arc his body makes in the dream becomes a loop. He flails awake. The dream is recurrent, felt in his body rather than his mind. A year out of the hospital and he can’t remember on waking where he is. Kay has lost patience with this morning thrash of limbs and makes it a point to be up and out of bed before him. Avi grabs at the phone as it skitters toward the edge of the nightstand.

“I sent you something,” says the voice on the other end. “A weird one. Take a look.” The voice pauses, waits.

“Good morning, Louis,” says Avi. Louis Hoffman is Avi’s friend and occasional informant at Homeland Security. He works out of Homeland’s Chicago office, but he and Avi have known each other since Louis’s days as an army liaison. Louis hasn’t called since Avi got out of the hospital.

“Look at it,” Louis says. “Right on your phone. I’ll wait.”

“I’m in bed,” says Avi, rolling himself up to a seated position.

“What happened to ‘the news never sleeps’?” Louis says.

“That’s not a saying,” Avi says. “Besides, I’m not—”

“Put your eyes on it and call me immediately,” says Louis, and hangs up. Avi sees the subject line on his home screen: Roseland/Ballston Common Bombings. His heart speeds up a little, that junkie rush. He thinks about opening it right now, before anything else. But Kay has let him sleep in, which sets them all behind schedule. He puts the phone on the nightstand, facedown. He picks up the sock from the floor and his prosthetic from its spot against the bed. The physical therapist says that over time, amputees start to think of their prostheses as part of their bodies. It feels like a foreign object to Avi. It looks like a plunger capped with a plastic foot. A half-witted piece of sculpture. He goes through the ritual of attaching it to his left leg below the knee. The process is boring while requiring close attention. A bad fit becomes painful as the day wears on, unbearable by lunch. In the beginning, Kay tried to help. The angles were better. It was easier for her to perfect the fit. But Avi was so angry in those first days home from the hospital. He yelled. Swatted her hands away. He apologized, and she assured him there was no need. It was important he accept his anger, understand it as justified. She knew that in time it would flow into the correct channel rather than spilling out at her