Switch (13 page)

‘Yeah, that was cool. I designed the lights for that. Ran the board, too.’

Sam stared at the white-haired man, recognition slowly sinking in. ‘David O’Donnell?’

Davey flinched. ‘Yeah, that’s me, but I don’t use the name any more. Just Davey or Davey O, OK?’

‘Christ, I didn’t recognize you. We used to hang together.’

‘Sure, sure.’ Davey grinned and pulled at his hair. ‘I had a few misadventures. Human body can only take so much, you know?’

Sam looked off the path, spotted the warehouse, and began moving through a patch of long grass towards it. Davey followed, the overgrown weeds brushing at his knees.

‘You ever see any of the old gang?’ Davey asked.

‘Nah. I left town right after graduation. Only came back a few months ago.’

‘I heard from someone, can’t remember who,
but they said you were on
Magnum P.I
. That hadda be cool.’

Sam smiled. ‘Yeah. Just two episodes though.’

‘Still . . . fuck, eh?’

Sam reached the chain-link fence separating the warehouse from the riverbank. ‘Let’s get out of this grass. The bugs will eat us alive.’

Davey pointed downstream. ‘There’s a break down that way. There’s no bugs, though. Too cold for ’em.’

Sam began walking again. Davey kept pace beside him.

‘So how did you end up here?’ Sam asked.

Davey’s voice was pained and hollow. ‘Drunk killed a little kid. Driver only nineteen. That was the end of the road, man. Broke something that can’t be fixed. Not ever.’

‘You were the driver,’ Sam said.

Davey dropped his chin to his chest as though hiding, not wanting to put voice to it.

Sam found the break in the fence and climbed through. He crossed a gravel yard and stopped beside four large, industrial garbage containers. There, he swung the knapsack off his back and laid it on the ground. As Davey approached, Sam reached inside the pack and retrieved one of the large bottles.

Davey’s eyes lit up as Sam handed it over.

‘Rum.’ Davey licked his lips as he unscrewed the top. ‘Bottle this big could kill a man.’

Davey took a long swallow and handed the
bottle back. Sam joined him, feeling the alcohol burn down his throat.

Davey retrieved the bottle and took another deep swallow. Grinning, he dropped his backpack on the ground and began to rummage inside.

‘Gotta show you somethin’,’ he said excitedly.

After a few moments, Davey stood up with a large, half-inch-thick hardbound book in his hand. The cover featured a silver ink etching of an Indian Warrior and the numbers ‘1984’ embossed in faded gold.

‘Recognize it?’

‘It’s our high school yearbook.’

‘Fuckin’ right.’ Davey’s eyes filled with glee as he took another long swallow of rum. ‘They changed the mascot the year after cause somebody thought it was racist. I carry it everywhere.’

‘Why?’

‘
WHY?
’ Davey screeched. ‘Why?’ Davey tipped the bottle again, his mouth filling so fast, alcohol squirted from the corners. ‘This was my life, man. Everything good that ever happened to me happened in that school. Everything since has been shit.’ He began to yell. ‘You understand what I’m saying. Shit! Shit! And more shit!’

Tears erupted from his eyes as he placed his hand on the yearbook as though swearing on the Bible. ‘It was like walking among gods, man. And I was there, and I was pure, and I was . . . I was good.’

Davey sunk to the ground and crossed his legs,
bottle beside him, the dog-eared book on his lap.

‘Let me show you.’ He opened the glossy pages and began to point at the photographs.

Unsure of what else to do, Sam sat on the ground beside the man he had known as a boy and listened to his stories as they shared the bottle.

44

The watcher looked down from his perch on the rooftop to study the scene playing out on the lot below.

The moon was barely a sliver low in the sky and the darkness was so deep the figures were unrecognizable to the naked eye. The voices, however, carried through the night without hindrance, every word as clear as if he was sitting beside them.

Intimate.

Cozy.

The watcher removed a pair of night goggles from a small pack and slipped them over his head. He powered them up with the flip of a switch and immediately the scene below was bathed in a phosphorous green light. He saw the distinct shapes of the two men now, huddled close together, looking at the book.

They had been friends once, but how flimsy the bonds to be so easily broken. Sam White was like
that. So focused on himself, he didn’t stay in touch with one of the most loyal friends he ever had.

When Davey went through the trial, the attempted suicide and the years in prison, Sam hadn’t even known – hadn’t cared to know. What did the pain of others really matter to him? People were drawn to the actor like moths to a flame, never understanding the flame didn’t care who or what it burned in an effort to stay bright.

Yet, even after being abandoned in his time of greatest need, Davey was laughing with him like nothing had happened.

The watcher shook his head. Davey should have been so angry at the betrayal, the uncaring selfishness, of the man he called a friend. The sight of him should have incited a riot of fists and feet, teeth and nails. Not laughter.

Sam White should be begging for his life as the truth of his own narcissism was pounded home.

The watcher clutched the disposable lighter tight in his hand, his thumb rubbing the side so hard it began to burn his flesh.

He didn’t flinch.

Sometimes he wished he was more like Davey and capable of feeling all the vibrant shades of pain. Still, he and Davey were alike in other ways. They both tried to hide the scars that made them the men they were. Survivors.

Yet to see Davey laughing now sent a bolt of confusion through his brain. Perhaps Davey needed a gentle reminder of what his old pal really was.

45

When the cellphone rang, Sam jumped, his insides fluttering with dread.

‘All caught up, Sam?’ asked the distorted voice.

‘Why are you doing this?’

‘Do you want your family back?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s all you need to concentrate on.’

‘I’ve done what you asked.’

The voice laughed, an electronic cackle and hiss.

‘You haven’t even begun.’

Sam stared at Davey who was so lost in another era, a time before cellphones even existed, that he didn’t seem to notice that Sam had been yanked away to the present.

‘What do you need me to do?’ Sam asked coldly.

‘I want him to burn,’ said the voice.

‘Christ!’

‘You have shared the first bottle, now spill the second. Make him burn.’

‘Jesus, I don’t—’

‘It’s either him or your daughter. You choose.’

‘You sick fuck.’

‘I want to hear,’ said the voice. ‘Keep this line open. Let me hear him scream.’

Keeping the phone pressed to his ear, Sam searched the surrounding area for any sign of his tormentor. The only clear line of sight would be from the roof of the warehouse, and that would require some form of night-vision. Although Sam couldn’t see any movement, or telltale shimmers of reflected glass, he could sense the voice’s presence.

Sam crouched to place the phone at his feet and became acutely aware that the garbage containers blocked his view of the roof as he dropped.

With the phone on the ground, Sam tensed his muscles and concentrated on MaryAnn and Hannah. He dug deep within himself, blanking his mind, channelling anger and rage, and clearing all thoughts of Davey as a friend . . . or even a human being.

With a snarl, Sam sprang to his feet and moved quickly in a blind, unforgiving fury. Davey yelped as he was yanked to his feet by the scruff of his coat, his prized yearbook tumbling from his grasp.

‘Wha—’

The protest abruptly became a whoosh of
expelled air as Sam’s fist slammed into Davey’s mid-section.

Sam threw the wounded body to the ground between two of the large metal containers. Davey weighed so little that he skidded on the ground and rolled until he hit the side of a container with a hollow bang. As Davey floundered, Sam grabbed the open bottle of rum and sent it crashing at his feet.

Davey held up his hands against the shards of flying glass, eyes bulging, his mouth opening and closing silently like a dying fish.

In a red frenzy of rage, Sam reached into the dumpsters and began throwing chunks of broken pallets and hunks of flattened cardboard down upon the helpless, quivering man.

Davey began to babble, saliva bubbling on trembling lips.

‘IS THIS WHAT YOU WANTED?’ Sam grabbed the second bottle from his knapsack and smashed it on top of the piled rubble.

‘Please,’ Davey croaked, gaining his voice. ‘Don’t do this, Sam.’

Sam ignored his friend’s pleas and reached down to pick up the yearbook.

He held it over the lighter –

‘NOooo!’

– until the pages caught fire, and then tossed it on top of the alcohol-soaked pyre.

Davey’s ear-shattering screams echoed around the yard as the alcohol burst into white-hot flame
with a whoosh that ignited everything. Thick black smoke billowed into the night sky as the dry wood crackled and snapped and cardboard began to dance in the rising currents of furnace-hot air.

Sam turned his back on the raging fire and strangled screams. He snatched the cellphone off the ground. His blackened cheeks were streaked with tears.

‘Did you hear all that?’ Anger seethed into every word.

‘Who’s the sick fuck now, Mr White?’

46

The watcher removed his night goggles and observed the flames, listening as Davey’s screams died into silence.

The screams never lasted long enough.

Never.

The watcher gently placed his hand over his heart, feeling the tight, hairless skin underneath soft, black cotton. He knew well the dangers of fire in the hands of someone who thought they controlled it. From the age of three, he had tasted its vengeful tongue against his skin. There was no part of him that hadn’t been tested.

The devil don’t burn, boy
.

His father’s voice whispered in his ear, the speaker so close he could feel warm spittle upon his neck. He closed his eyes, remembering the lessons that shaped his life.

Why does he live in hell, boy?

‘Cause the devil don’t burn.’

That’s, right. We test ourselves; test our flesh.
If we burn, we’re pure. And if we scream?

‘We’re pure?’

That’s right. You’ve got to scream to the Lord, boy. Scream to your Maker. Scream for Him to take away your sin and scorch the demon’s caress from your flesh
.

‘I don’t feel the pain, Pa. I try to. I really do.’

Satan’s trying to trick you, boy. The pain is in there. Maybe buried deep, but fire brings it out
.

The watcher concentrated, wishing the long-dead ghost away.

When he opened his eyes again, he was alone on the roof, the fire still burning below. As he watched, Sam began to walk away, then stopped. His whole body shook and he sank to the ground.

The sound of torment carried on the breeze. The watcher smiled.

‘A lesson learned,’ he said. ‘A lesson to open your eyes, to see who you really are.’

The watcher packed away his night goggles and stood. Dressed completely in black, he remained invisible to prying eyes.

He hummed softly to himself as he walked away, words joining the tune of their own volition, but the voice that escaped his lips was not his own.

‘The devil don’t burn, boy. The devil don’t burn.’

47

Sam sat on the cold, lumpy ground with his back to the smoldering embers of the fire. His entire body shuddered as the rush of adrenalin slowly retreated from his veins.

Thirty minutes earlier, he thought he’d heard the sound of a vehicle crunching over gravel as it retreated from the other side of the warehouse, but he couldn’t be sure.

A low groan drifted from the darkest corner where the two oversized garbage containers met. Sam hugged himself to control the shaking.

The groan grew louder, and then erupted in a series of hacking, wheezing coughs before abruptly stopping. The night was perfectly silent for the briefest of moments.

‘Why did you do that, Sam?’ asked a small, trembling voice.

‘Somebody wanted you dead?’ Sam kept his voice barely above a whisper. ‘And they wanted me to do it.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know yet.’

‘You burned my book.’

‘It was either that or you.’

‘You did burn me. My legs are blistered. My shoes are melted.’

‘I needed you to scream.’

Davey snorted. ‘Mission accomplished . . . fuck, it hurts. My skin is raw.’

‘Don’t move.’ Sam’s voice was tight.

‘Why?’ Davey snapped. ‘You not done yet?’

‘He might still be watching.’

‘Who?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You’re fuckin’ useless.’

‘I saved your life.’

‘You set me on fire,’ Davey squawked.

‘Stay where you are until morning, then get it treated. I assume there are places you can go that don’t ask for I.D.’

‘Yeah, so?’

‘You need to keep a low profile.’

‘You don’t get much fuckin’ lower than livin’ under a bridge, Sam.’

‘He found you this time.’

‘You found me.’

‘No. He told me
where
to find you.’

‘Great. So I need to crawl under a rock, but not the same rock I usually do, and I need to watch out for someone I don’t know.’

‘But you’re alive.’

Davey snorted again. ‘You call this livin’?’

Sam stood and brushed dirt off his pants. The shaking had subsided. He kept his back to the warehouse, his face, mouth, hidden from view.

‘Davey,’ he said, his voice barely carrying, ‘back in high school, did you know a black kid named Parker? He would have been one of the nerds.’

‘Don’t ring a bell,’ Davey said huffily. ‘If you hadn’t burned my book, we could’ve looked him up.’

‘I’ll get you another book, Davey.’

‘Yeah?’ Davey’s voice brightened. ‘For sure?’

‘Yeah,’ Sam promised. ‘For sure.’