New Title 4 (16 page)

Phil made two calls before he called Big Maggie, neither of which were received that well, but he knew this last call would be the one that would be most difficult. Phil had to deal with all sorts of horrid things all the time, of course. After dealing with everything from mutant vampire dolphins to Elder Gods, nothing should have made him nervous anymore. Those were things with which he had become familiar. But no matter how often he talked to the general manager of OneStop Mart Store number 1186, Big Maggie still managed to give him nightmares.

According to Caleb, Big Maggie hadn t always known about the things that went on at her store after dark. Caleb had done his best to make sure that neither she nor any of the other daytime employees of the OneStop got pulled into their bizarre little world. Eventually the Apocalypse shift crew hadn t been able to hide it anymore and Big Maggie had been forced to acknowledge that some things went bump in the night at her store. She handled it just as well as many people would, which was to say she did everything in her power to pretend it didn t exist.

As Phil had made the previous two calls, both Caleb and Gloria had gone about doing their best to run the store, having unlocked the doors and let several impatient customers, two of whom had gills, into the store. While Phil dialed Big Maggie s home number Caleb was manning the remaining register while Gloria swept up broken pieces from the one that had spilled on the floor. They both talked in completely calm manners as though nothing big was happening, and truthfully if Phil hadn t been concerned for the life (or un-life) of his girlfriend he might very well have taken the same attitude. This was, after all, just like most other nights.

You sure you don t mind helping out? Caleb asked Gloria. It s not like your employee code is still in the computer. You can t punch in and get paid for your time here.

Oh I still consider myself getting paid. Just consider it part of what I have to do for your next paycheck.

Caleb winced. I was really hoping that among all the excitement you would have forgotten that by now.

Not a chance in hell, Butcher.
I told you not to call me that.
You know you like it.
Wylma told me that some people have started

Phil made a shushing gesture as Big Maggie s phone began to ring. She picked up after the first ring, and Phil didn t have any time to even say hi.

You better have a hell of a good reason for not calling me the instant that prick broke into the cash register, or you re fired.

Actually Maggie, it s Phil calling. Not Caleb. Oh, then sorry. Didn t mean it, she said, and there was a pause. Why the hell isn t Caleb calling me? He was the one that was supposed to be there tonight, not Lucas.
Phil covered the receiver with one hand and looked over at Caleb. You didn t even tell Big Maggie that you were switching shifts?
Dude, are you kidding? If I did that she would have threatened to fire me again.
She s been threatening to fire you twice a week for as long as I ve been here, Phil said. I really don t think you have anything to worry about at this point. He uncovered the receiver. Things came up for him, Phil said, having to hide the little bit of anger in his voice. He fully accepted Caleb s apology for screwing him over tonight, but that didn t mean he was any happier about it.
Well tell him next time he switches shifts without clearing it by me first he s going to be fired, Big Maggie said.
I m sure he already knows that.
You still should have called me right away when Lucas did whatever the hell it is he did.
How did you even know already?
The police called me. They always do when they need to show up at the store.
So they called you when they came last night to hall away the body of the giant flying firebreathing armadillo?
What? Um, no. They only call me when the non-imaginary things happen.
Maggie, we ve told you that this stuff isn t imaginary. You keep emergency funds around for demon attacks and crap. Hell, you actually saw the invasion of the tentacled opossum brains. You can t keep denying it.
Not listening. La la la!
Phil sighed. Okay fine, whatever. So you know the register is broken at least?
There better not be a single dollar bill missing from that register or else its coming out of Caleb s paycheck.
But he didn t have anything to do with it. It was all Lucas s fault.
Well he s fired too then.
Whatever. Look, I just need to tell you that I m leaving early tonight.
The hell you are! It s bad enough you re going to be there alone. We re not closing the store because the new guy freaked out for no particular reason.
Actually, he freaked out because he s gone mad with the power of the twelve world-destroying artifacts he stole and is trying to sell them tonight to the most powerful beasties on the Hill.
I m not listening. La la la!
God damn it, Maggie, he kidnapped my girlfriend!
There was silence from the other end of the line for several seconds. Oh. I m I m sorry Phil. Why didn t the police mention anything about that when they called me?
Because the jerkasses don t consider her a real girlfriend if she s undead.
Oh. Right. I m going to pretend at all points in the future where I talk to you that I didn t hear that.
Fine. Whatever. But I ve got to find her. And I m not even suggesting closing the store. I ve already got people coming in to replace both me and Lucas, so the store s going to be just fine.
Big Maggie made a grunting noise. I guess that s fine then. As long as the store stays open. And it better be clean by the time I get there in the morning, or else
Or else Caleb is fired, Phil said. Right. I know. Go back to sleep, Maggie. He hung up on her. He was sure she wouldn t appreciate that, but by the morning she probably would have tried convincing herself that his call was just a nightmare anyway.
So? Caleb said. Can we get the hell out of here and stop the guy who has all my crap?
For the first time since the second reality change Phil actually found a reason to smile. You know, I keep forgetting to tell you. He doesn t actually have all your crap anymore. He s missing one. Phil bent down and grabbed his duffel bag from under the counter. He started rifling through it as both Caleb and Gloria came to stand over him. I hid it in here before the cops got here. I didn t think they would even know what the hell it was, but I figured you wouldn t want them asking questions about where it came from. Also, one of those rent-acops might have tried to solve the damn thing. He pulled out what he was looking for and stood up, holding it out to Caleb. Merry Christmas. Don t say I never got you anything.
Caleb smiled back at him as he took Rubik s Ultimate Cube from Phil s hands and examined it. You re a little late. Or really early.
Are we sure that s the real thing now? Gloria asked.
I saw Lucas use it with my own eyes. You can always line up a few colors if you want to check for sure.
Both Caleb and Gloria looked at each other and answered at the same time. Um, no.
The door opened and they all turned to see as Kelly walked in. She had on her boots and camouflaged pants, but her gray Army t-shirt was inside out. There were huge bags under her eyes and she seemed to be stifling a yawn. Phil, she said, you better have a good reason for calling in to work at one twenty in the morning.
It involves a kidnapping, Phil said. And a zombie.
And cyborgs, Gloria said.
With a chance of scattered ends of the world, Caleb said.
Kelly finally let the yawn out. Okay. Good enough. I saw Sheila coming down the street. Freaking out every time she saw her own shadow, but she ll be here in a minute. Whatever it is you need to go do, go do it. And you owe me for this.
Absolutely, Phil said. You have no idea how grateful I am. He stooped down to pick up his duffel as both Caleb and Gloria grabbed theirs from where they d stashed them next to his. So what are we up to now?
First we need to go back to my place, Gloria said. It s on the way to Leechman Park, and I can think of at least one more thing there that we need. Also, we should arm you with something other than just stakes.
Actually, Caleb said. You can take the sword Gloria gave me. I ve got something better I can use.
How can you have something better? Gloria asked. That s my best sword.
Caleb patted his duffel bag. Trust me. I ve got something cool now.
And after we get what you need? Phil asked.
Then we do what we always do, Caleb said. Save your girl. Save the world.
Sounds too much like work, Phil said, but he said it with a smile. Both Caleb and Gloria smiled back.
Yep, Caleb said. Pretty much.

Leechman Park was the second largest park in the whole city, but for something so large it had always seemed kind of barren to Gloria. Even on the rare occasions when she saw it during the day on a weekend, when there should have been way more families tossing footballs together or walking their dogs or cooking out, it always felt kind of empty. People would go to it, and they might very well have plenty of fun, but they never stayed for long. Even most of the night denizens of the Hill couldn t really say why, but they could feel the power of the place even more so. There was a lot of raw energy that flowed through here. It spilled out westward from the park down the gentle slope that gave the Hill its name, but even if it wasn t geographically the center of the Hill, it was the center in every other conceivable way. Whatever it was that made the Hill so different, it came from Leechman Park.

Gloria, Caleb and Phil approached it from 10
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Street coming from Gloria s place. They had stopped to pick up the item she needed as well as made sure that Rubik s Ultimate Cube was stashed somewhere safe. It wasn t the best place for it, but it would have to do until they found everything else and could come up with a new hiding place for them all together.

10
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Street ended with a dead end and a rather thick line of trees, which would work well enough for cover. Beyond the trees the proper portion of the park began, well trimmed grassy picnic areas with a few benches and tables. Fifty feet into the park a road wound through it, meandering this way and that until it eventually went all the way around the entire park. In the distance they could see the tops of two of the park s three pavilions, one mostly in the center and one farther to the north, but they couldn t see anything that might be going on in them. There were too many artificial hills that blocked their views. If what Phil had told them about Sue s origins was true, then one or more of those hills hid multiple dead bodies from that long ago disastrous music video. Despite the fact that Sue had a headstone with her name on it in a proper cemetery somewhere, this was actually where she returned when daylight came.

Phil and Caleb were hunkered down near the bushes next to the trees while Gloria stood, keeping in the shadows and watching whatever she could. Phil held his sword, drilling it restlessly into the dirt at his feet, while Caleb had that dubious looking death ray he had picked up earlier. To Gloria it didn t look like it could kill an ant even if Caleb just smashed it with the handle, but Caleb insisted that he had already used it and found it more than satisfactory. He also said it hadn t been able to take Fluffy down, so Gloria wasn t so sure how effective he thought it would be here. Gloria had her crossbow and a small pouch full of bolts, but she didn t have it in her hands at the moment. Instead she had a pair of night vision binoculars. She d had them for a while, but this was her first real chance to use them. They would be able to see across most of the park if the land wasn t so hilly, but at least she could see everything just as clear as though it were day.

When do I get a chance to look through them? Caleb asked.
Never, Gloria said. You d just break them. Caleb waved his death ray at the binoculars. No I wouldn t. I d be perfectly The death ray slipped from his fingers, and he tried to catch it with fumbling fingers before it finally hit the ground. Okay, so I probably would. Why do you even have those, anyway?
For times exactly like this, moron, she said.
How do you even have the money to buy something hi-tech like that? Phil asked.
People have a tendency to shove a whole lot of money down my underwear at the day job. Getting the money s not the problem sometimes, it s spending it. You should have seen the look on the sales guy s face when I told him I wanted to pay for this all in singles.
Phil started to jab his sword a little more aggressively into the ground. What s the time now, anyway?
Two minutes after two, Caleb said as he looked at the display on his cell phone. Exactly three minutes since the last time you asked.
Do you see anything yet? Phil asked.
No, Gloria said, but those damn hills are screwing with my visibility. I might just have to try climbing one of these trees pretty soon.
Do we even know what we want to be looking for? Caleb asked.
Gloria shrugged. Anything out of the ordinary, I guess.
Around here, Caleb said, the only thing that s out of the ordinary is the ordinary itself.
You re absolutely right, Gloria said. And you know what s ordinary for a park at night? For it to be empty. Like this one is now.
Not necessarily, Phil said. A park at night is always good for shady deals or whatever.
Anywhere else in the city? Maybe, Gloria said. But there s plenty of places on the Hill for shady deals. No need to go to the park. However, there should be things roaming around here right now. The other day I saw a family of ghouls here playing fetch with their zombie dog using a severed arm as the stick. It should be just as busy here as it is in any other part of the neighborhood. So why is it completely quiet?
What do you want to bet Lucas has Fluffy and Tuffy or some other minions wandering around making sure no one unwelcome gets in? Phil said.
Sounds like a sound bet to me, Caleb said. Do either of you wonder just how the hell Lucas seems to be managing this in the first place? I mean, I know he was probably playing the fool for our benefit but he still didn t seem like the sort of guy to do all this.
He thinks he can make a lot of money by selling all those artifacts, I guess? Gloria said. But even as she said that she realized there was a flaw in that logic. This wasn t just diamonds or car stereos he had stolen and was trying to pawn off now. These were items that were capable of destroying the world, and he was apparently willing to put them into the hands of anyone with a little bit of money. That would be an incredibly stupid thing to do, and so far tonight he hadn t shown himself to be as stupid as he had looked the night before. Lucas had done enough research that he had known exactly where Caleb had kept all his trophies, enough even to know what kind of things Caleb had and how to use them. He d thought ahead to create a decoy to give Caleb and Gloria a wild goose chase through the entire neighborhood, and he apparently had the connections to get cyborgs working for him. None of that added up to someone just trying to make a little extra spending cash.
If there s maybe people going around patrolling the park, Caleb said, then it might not be the best idea for us to just stay in one place.
Probably, Gloria said. Let s move north, stick to the edge of the park, see if we can get a better view of any of the pavilions or anything. Those would probably be better places for whatever s going down. They each grabbed their weapons and duffel bags and moved in the direction of 11
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Street, making sure they kept to the trees and made as little noise as possible. When they found a place where the hills wouldn t block so much of Gloria s view, yet they could still hide in the bushes, they stopped. Gloria took out the binoculars again as Phil started talking to Caleb.
So man, explain to me how that god damned flute works, Phil said.
I already did. Play the right song and you can control anything.
So you really could use it to control humans? Phil asked.
Yeah, but only one song works for that. A really tough one. To the best of my knowledge no one in recorded history has ever played enough of the song without mistakes to actually make it work.
And what song would that be?
Freebird.
Seriously?
Yep. For controlling zombies anything by Queen will work, plus Smoke on the Water. Barry Manilow songs control fairies and pixies. Supposedly American Pie is the call of Cthulhu.
How long has the flute existed?
For millennia.
Then how come all the songs for it come from the seventies?
Dunno. I guess the seventies were just a very mysterious time, Caleb said.
So how far does this control over the person work? Phil asked. It can t be so powerful as all that if Sue was able to fight it off, right?
No, it is that powerful. I ve seen it used, and when it s used right the person or creature it takes over is perfectly under the control of whoever played the song. They don t need to play the song again. The controlled is just the player s puppet until the controlled one is dead. Which isn t actually that long, I hear. The song scrambles something in the brains of whoever it takes over.
Shit! Phil said. You mean it s going to kill her?
Hey, keep it down, Gloria said. She was still scanning the park and finding nothing. She motioned for Caleb and Phil to follow her and they walked another block or so up. The trees were getting thinner here, so they couldn t go much farther.
No, listen, Caleb said to Phil as they moved. She resisted, right? So that means Lucas didn t get the song right.
Yeah, I did hear him make a couple mistakes. They weren t much, though.
Not much is still enough that his control over her isn t perfect. That also means she has longer before it fries her brain, but I couldn t tell you how much.
How do you break the player s control over a person? Phil asked.
Only two ways that I know of, Caleb said. He twirled the death ray in his hand, and Gloria had to stop what she was doing to glare at him. She had no doubt that when the critical time came he could think of a way to use that thing in a way that would save all their asses. She also didn t doubt that he was highly likely to blow his own face off in the mean time. Caleb caught her look and stopped, grinning at her as though she had nothing to worry about. She realized having feelings for him was a bit like caring for a puppy. Sometimes he was adorable and fun to be around, but he still chewed up the furniture and took random craps on the floor.
First way, Caleb said, is to play the song yourself on the flute. Problem with that is you re not technically freeing whoever was under its control. You re just changing who s in charge, and I don t think you really want to do that.
Then we have to go with the second way, I guess, Phil said.
Uh, the second way would be to kill the person in control, Caleb said. The one being controlled would come right out of it, but I don t think we really want to do that to Lucas yet. Hasn t exactly earned it.
That we know of, Gloria said. But what would happen if you played the flute and intentionally got the song wrong? Wouldn t the control go over to you but in such a flawed way that the one being controlled would basically be free to ignore whatever you want them to do?
I don t know, Caleb said. Maybe. Yeah, I guess that even seems likely. Problem is that first we would have to get the flute.
And everything else, don t forget, Gloria said. She continued scanning the park to the northeast. There was still nothing. If Lucas really did have people keeping random passersby out of the park, then she should have at least been able to see
something
by now. The northernmost pavilion was well within her view, but it didn t look occupied at all.
Hey wait, what was that? Phil asked.
Where? Gloria turned her binoculars back towards the south, but she still didn t see anything.
No, other direction, Phil said. He pointed farther north. There were two very tall apartment buildings at the northern border of the park, although a ghostly third building could sometimes just barely be seen when there was enough moonlight. That wasn t what Phil was pointing at, however. She put the binoculars down long enough to see what he might be looking at, and she could see something moving in the distance. She put the binoculars back to her eyes and focused in on it.
Oh, well I didn t expect to see her, Gloria said.
See who? Caleb asked.
It s Wylma, Gloria said.
What? Oh, please tell me she s not in on this with Lucas, Caleb said.
Gloria watched Wylma through the bright green of the night vision. She was alone, but she didn t exactly seem to know where she was going. She kept stopping and looking around, walking a little bit in one direction and then a little bit in another.
I don t know, Gloria said. She almost seems confused. She s too far away for me to get a good look at her face, so I can t really be sure.
Oh, she better just be fucking lost, Caleb said. He pulled out his cell phone and started dialing. If she goes and turns on me too then I ll skin every last Disney character off her arms.
What the hell are you doing? Gloria asked. She lowered binoculars and reached for the cell phone, but he pulled it out of her reach. If she s with Lucas then you re going to let them know that we re here!
Caleb didn t seem to hear that last part, however. He already had the phone to his ear, and he backed away from Gloria as she reached for it again. Stop trying to grab it! Caleb said. Just watch her, all right? Make sure she doesn t try any hocus pocus.
Gloria grumbled, but she didn t think she was going to convince him. She put the binoculars back to her eyes but stayed close enough to Caleb that she could hear both his and Wylma s sides of the conversation. Through the night vision she could see Wylma look all around her as her phone rang, like she didn t know where the noise was coming from, then seemed to remember she was carrying a purse and started rummaging through it.
She s answering, Gloria said, and a few seconds later she could faintly hear Wylma s voice on Caleb s phone.
Caleb? Wylma said.
Wylma, what the hell are you doing?
I uh what are you talking about?
We can see you, Wylma. Why the hell are you in Leechman Park right now?
Wylma turned around in circles as she looked for where they might be. Gloria took it as a good sign that she couldn t see any of them. If she couldn t then maybe no one else could either.
Caleb, I m sorry. I just figured this is what I had to do to make it up to you.
What are you talking about?
It was my fault that someone broke into your apartment. I need to make that right.
I told you not to worry about it, Wylma.
But I do. You know I m going to. I ll get everything back for you.
How did you even know to come to Leechman Park?
About half an hour ago I got a phone call, somebody saying they still had everything and that if I was here at the park at three a.m. I d get a chance to buy it all back. I just wanted to make up for what I did. But um whoever it was didn t actually say where in the park. I think I m a little lost.
Wylma, Caleb said, we can do this without you going in and
No, Gloria said. She lowered the binoculars and looked at Caleb. We can t.
Caleb lowered his phone and glared at her. Now s not the time for negative thinking.
What I mean, Gloria said, is I have an idea. She took the cell phone away from Caleb before he had any chance to protest and held it to her own ear. Hey Wylma, feeling nice and rested for a little magic here and there?
I guess. Why?
How would you like to be our spy?