Some Assembly Required (13 page)

Regrettably, Benji didn’t get the message and followed along.

“You okay?” he asked as he appeared next to Patrick.

“Fine,” Patrick curtly replied. Benji was like a battery next to him, and he focused on opening himself to lap up the energies. Just enough to get this over with. His head was already fuzzy and full of a cottony sensation.

“You keep saying that,” Benji said.

“Because it’s true.”

The woman calling herself Blanche brightened at Benji. “Oh! Is this your valet? He’s charming. Amazing what one can do these days with educational opportunities for the disadvantaged.”

Patrick jerked to a stop. “Excuse me?”

“Pardon you,” Benji said, just as offended.

Blanche blinked, clearly oblivious. “Oh? Where are my manners?” She waved a hand and beckoned Patrick closer. “You know”—she jerked her chin toward Benji—“the mentally challenged.”

Patrick jerked back like he had been clubbed with a VERONA table leg. “What fucking part of the devil’s urethra did you fall out of and can you crawl back up in it?” he snarled.

Benji and Blanche both staggered back at Patrick’s outburst.

“That’s what they’re called, right?” she asked primly.

Patrick flung up his hand to halt her. “Stop. Making. Words.”

“Patrick…?” Benji asked with a slight shake of the head.

“You don’t get to insult him like that,” Patrick growled. “You don’t get to waste my time with your perpetual bullshit.”

“I beg your pardon?” Blanche stepped back, aghast.

“You’re a disservice to the human being you once were,” Patrick continued and took a challenging step toward her. “You’re desecrating my sacred space. This is
my
CASA, and
I
decide if you are permitted here.” He took another step, and she retreated from him. “You do not get to disrespect me, and you above all do not get to treat him like garbage. Do you know him?”

“No, of course not!” she said, flustered and with a hand to her chest.

“That’s right. You don’t. His name is Benjamin Goss. It’s his honorable duty to escort lost children to their parents. He should get a goddamn medal for his selflessness,” Patrick rumbled, like a storm on the horizon.

“Patrick…,” Benji whispered, averting his eyes.

“Shut up, Benji,” Patrick ordered him. His tone was purposely unkind. He turned back to Blanche. “You know what I get to deal with? Do you know?”

“No….” She took another step away.

“I get to deal with garbage like you. Day in and day out, I get to pretend I’m interested in your fucking curtain rods and window treatments.” He tilted his chin, aiming a pointed glare at her chest. “You died by being impaled on a GALLEGIANTE curtain rod, by the way. Had to have sucked. I was decapitated by a DEL TORO bookcase. I think you might be a winner at what sucked more.”

Benji started. His eyes rounded with worry.

Stop looking at me like that.
Patrick wanted to tell him.
Stop looking at me like that!

“Patrick,” Karin said sharply in his ear as she appeared. “Is there a problem here?”

He jerked away from her. “No problem. I’m gone.” He blinked once, and when he opened his eyes, he found himself in the darkness of the parking garage. Patrick crushed the heels of his palms to his eyes, trying to will the angry ball of a headache away. He took a deep breath, filling his chest, and let it go again. But nothing was helping to relax or center him.

Nothing could hide his frayed thoughts anymore. Benji was too distracting. Too kind. Too honorable. Too sensitive. Too everything. CASA had chosen Benji for something. He wasn’t moving on. But Patrick hadn’t tried to help him. Karin had chided him for being sweet on his “cupcake.” Benji was a passing entertainment, someone he would eventually get out of his CASA uniform and into his MILAN bed. Then he’d happily send him on his way until the next guy came along.

His failure ate at his bones like a Weople dismembering its prey. He’d let himself get involved. He couldn’t decide what hurt worse, the attachment or his compromised emotions. Benji had long outworn his welcome, and something had to give.

He shivered from the cold as the living customers passed him by, heading to their cars.

They could leave. Reality clung to him like the icy chains on a Dickensian ghost.

What the fuck had he been expecting? The chance to have something of a life in CASA? He and Benji settling into a routine of comfort and making the most of eternity? Playing house in simulated homes? He’d tried that once. He’d settled down. He’d fallen in love. And how had that worked out for him? He’d poured out all his devotion and love and been rewarded with the devastating truth that even in forever, nothing truly lasts forever.

He couldn’t do that again.

Ever since Benji’s arrival, Patrick’s wandering thoughts about the would-haves and could-haves only served as a reminder CASA was a nightmare he would never wake from. A nightmare he had learned to accept. CASA became normal. His reality. Agnes, Karin, the ball pit, bugging the shit out of Tommy to break up the monotony. And Henry. His personal puzzle.

Patrick remained close to the elevators as the happy families packed their cars like Tetris masters, calling commands to one another, moving seats, taking out boxes, packing and repacking, even opening the boxes to fit the pieces into every available nook and cranny.

They were moving on, heading to their homes. Patrick didn’t have to guess what they were saying. They joked about being thankful to escape CASA, what to do for dinner, and what was on TV tonight.

Patrick’s knees gave out from under him, and he stumbled against the trash can. It jerked with the initial impact, but he fell through it as his corporeal form blinked out for only a second and he crashed to the concrete.

He gasped, and cold, clammy sweat ran down his back. He had to go back inside. He needed to get back to the ball pit. He had already spent too much energy in CASA, wasting it on being angry at everything and repelling the living. The longer he sat in the garage, the more his energy wicked out of him like moisture into a rag. He had to recoup his losses, but that would mean admitting his failings.

Benji had said it once: CASA was such a happy place.

Patrick chuckled bitterly. If he were a praying man, he’d hope Benji would never lose that idea. But Patrick had seen through it all too soon. All that remained now was coping.

In the darkness, the customers happily packed their cars. Finally thankful they had escaped CASA purgatory. It was insultingly laughable. The regulars would be back next week, and some as soon as tomorrow when they realized they’d forgotten a part. And the Impressions popped up in a steady stream. The afterlife side of CASA had plenty of business to keep him and the crew on their toes.

Static pricked at Patrick’s skin with pins and needles before he heard the whispers.

CASA had its Impressions, which were of the pleasant variety. The Wallville had its own version, and they weren’t even close to pleasant.

Patrick called them the Gloom. The Impressions had human forms, but the Gloom were mere shadows that moved like runny trails of ink. They slithered across the cars and over customers, infecting them with the temptation to go to Wallville and join the Weoples’ ranks.

A husband and wife rolled by him with their cart full of gargantuan boxes. The bear of a man bounced their infant daughter in a pink flowered harness.

“She was so good.” The wife smiled at their little girl. “Slept the whole time.”

The husband nodded. “Did you see that little boy in the car seat?” He shuddered. “God, his wailing could have shattered glass.”

The wife swatted at his shoulder. “Stop being so negative. You know Beatrice is going to hit the terrible twos and it’ll be Armageddon.”

“If she’s a screamer like your sister’s kid, I’m investing in earplugs.” He frowned.

“Oh, come on.”

Patrick rolled to his side as the couple strolled away, happily chatting between themselves. Their love carved a rent in Patrick’s concrete heart. He’d stopped torturing himself with what-ifs after his first five years in CASA, staring at displays of happy families with their children and wondering if he would have ever been that guy. Dreams and fantasies were useless in CASA. They always ended in disappointment. It was better not to believe what else was out there. Nothing was out there.

Patrick sat up and leaned back against the glass windows of the back entrance. The dimness of the parking garage provided a soothing break from the glaring fluorescent lights. He tried to breathe. Not that he needed it, but old habits were hard to break. He wiped his forehead, but his damp hand on his skin did nothing to alleviate the clamminess. Light from inside washed over him in sunny yellow hues.

A
rat-a-tat
on the glass startled him. Patrick turned and found Karin, furious and yelling at him. Her voice was muffled, but he could make out the basics of “Get back in here, you asshole!” She tapped again and flicked her wrist, beckoning him back inside.

Patrick staggered to his feet and narrowed his eyes at her. He said nothing, and her frustration gave way to pounding on the glass.

“Okay…,” he whispered and pressed his hand to the glass against hers. “Okay.”

The automatic doors slid apart with a happy chime as a tween girl scampered into the parking garage. She darted toward Patrick, tears flowing down her cheeks.

“Help me! Help me!” she cried and tugged at the hem of his shirt.

Patrick stumbled back, surprised. “What?”

Lost kids were Benji’s department. Unless….

“Are you lost, sweetheart?” He tried for a reassuring smile as a sickly shiver raced up his spine.

She violently shook her head and then pointed at the family casually strolling toward the outer reaches. “We have to stop them! The baby!”

Patrick’s heart thumped. He’d learned the hard way not to try to connect emotionally with Impressions. They all had tragic stories—obviously, or they wouldn’t be in CASA waiting to move on. But that was impossible in situations like this one. When the Impressions of children appeared in CASA, it crippled him with agony, knowing they had been ripped from their families.

He crouched to her level and gripped her tiny shoulders. “What? What about the baby? Tell me.”

“She’s going to swallow the dowels of the PISA!”

Karin remained on the opposite side of the glass. She pounded again, shaking her head. “Stop her!” he read on her lips.

The girl broke away from him and bolted farther into the parking garage. The Gloom perked and slithered after her.

“Fuck,” Patrick growled. He glanced back at Karin. She pounded again, and he slapped the glass at her. He nodded once and sprinted off after the girl.

The Gloom screeched, attracted by Patrick’s energy. He knew he’d be a more tempting morsel to them than a little girl Impression. They flanked him from behind like a rising tide, blocking his escape back to CASA.

She showed no signs of slowing down as she screamed nonsense at the living family.

Patrick gnashed his teeth. Not only had they parked in the outer reaches, their car was in the farthest row along the guard wall.

“Wait!” he yelled to her. “Fuck! Wait!”

The girl refused to slow down, booking it like she wanted to be first in line for BBMak tickets. For an Impression, she was fast. Even so, usually he’d have no problem overtaking her. But with most of his energy depleted, it was like moving through tar.

The Gloom closed in, their foul hellfire breath licking at the back of Patrick’s neck.

He concentrated on moving one foot in front of the other.
Keep running. Don’t stop. Don’t stop.

The Gloom shot forward, cutting him off from the little girl and the living family.

With no other option, he sprinted head-on toward a parked SUV. The Gloom might be deadly, but they were a stupid bunch. They blocked direct paths but assumed parked cars would also serve as excellent blockades. From watching them drape over the cars like a curtain of darkness, Patrick had learned the Gloom assumed the Guides of CASA would never run headlong into something that would have severely injured them in life. By staying solid, CASA Guides held on to their humanity.

Humanity was merely semantics now.

Patrick took a breath, releasing the reins of concentration that kept him corporeal. He flickered out two seconds too late as he hit the grill of the SUV straight on with his chest. His form dissolved, and the momentum carried his essence through the body of the SUV and out the other side. Flickering back into a solid shape, he crashed onto the pavement hard on one shoulder, and his vision splintered with the shock of pain.

In the distance, the girl kept to her hurried pace, screaming all the while to get the family’s attention. It was useless. Clearly she didn’t understand that only he could do something. She was in one piece, for now. And Patrick would see to it she stayed that way.

The Gloom regrouped, and Patrick scrambled to his feet. His breaths were heavy, and his chest burned from the impact with the grill, but determination pushed him onward. The clamminess, the cold, and the shivers of warning sickness, he pushed out of his mind. When presented with life and death, Patrick ignored his sense of self-preservation in favor of saving a little girl.

He was CASA employee of the decade, dedicated to customer satisfaction. He didn’t know the meaning of sick days.

The family was in sight and, by a stroke of luck, struggling to pack their tiny car. The wife took their daughter and then maneuvered her into her car seat. Thank the almighty for new parents as she fiddled with the straps and hinges. The husband busied himself with trying to figure out how to get the titanic PISA box in the car.

“You could take it out of the box. I saw other people doing it,” the wife said in an encouraging tone.

Her husband hid his frustration behind a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. Patrick knew that look well. It was the same one he practiced when he looked at Benji and every nerve in his body ignited with urges he’d long denied.

Casting a glance over his shoulder, Patrick frowned. The Gloom had outfoxed him by cornering him against the guard wall.