I pressed the red button again. “Op Nine, Op Nine, this is Alfred. Answer if you can hear me. It’s raining. Over.”
I counted to five, and then tried again. “Op Nine, really need to talk to you. This is Alfred, over.”
Nothing. Not even static. Maybe it was defective or maybe the batteries were dead. You would think highly specialized operatives—particularly a SPA like Op Nine—would check their equipment before a covert op like this one.
There was only one way to test it. Technically, I wasn’t in a panic—not yet—but I was about as close as you can get. I decided I could always tell him I hit it accidentally.
I pressed the blue button.
I counted to ten. Nothing happened. He didn’t come bursting through the hedges, gun drawn, to my rescue. He didn’t come at all, even after I reached sixty and then gave up counting, slipped the mini-3XD into my coat pocket, and eased out the door that faced away from the street, so the mother of the saucer-eyed kids wouldn’t see me. I ran bent over to the hedge, then ducked around it, putting it between me and the road. Now maybe if I stood up and walked casually toward the front door she might mistake me for Op Nine—or Detective Bruce Givens—though that seemed unlikely, since he was about three inches taller and twenty pounds lighter. Sometimes you have to go with all that’s left, even if all that’s left is foolish hope.
I sauntered up the walkway to the front door. I didn’t see how Op Nine got in, but I figured I’d start with the door. The concrete was slick with ice and I had to walk very slowly. At the bottom of the steps leading up to the porch was a flower bed filled with leafless shrubs and a small figure standing guard, just to my left.
A yard gnome. I had a thing about yard gnomes, like I told Dr. Benderhall; I’m not sure why. I put them in the same class as clowns: something that’s supposed to be funny but really is kind of scary. This particular yard gnome had seen his share of winters. The paint on the face was flecking off and the paint that remained had faded to various hues of gray.
I dropped to a crouch and shuffled to the door—I wasn’t sure if I could be seen over the top of the hedge. I could hear the neighbor now: Quick, call the cops! It’s that huge-headed hooligan!
So how did he get in? The front door was locked and the two windows on either side were closed and latched down. Maybe he could melt through walls, like a phantom. First I had him pegged as a cyborg; now he could melt through walls.
So I froze up again and tried the blue button one more time while I leaned against the front door.
At that moment, I heard the dead bolt slowly pull back. I scrambled to my feet, turned, and watched as the front door creaked open about two inches.
“Op Nine?” I whispered.
Nothing. So I took a deep breath, pushed open the door, and stepped inside my own personal house of horrors.
37
The first thing I noticed was the smell of cat. It’s an unmistakable odor and also unavoidable, no matter how often you change the litter box. If this was a movie, the cat would leap out of the dark at me, I would scream, the audience would jump, and then both of us would go “whew!” right before the slasher came barreling out of the shadows with the butcher knife. I should probably neutralize the cat before proceeding.
The second thing I noticed was the yard gnome.
Was it the same gnome from outside? In semidarkness almost everything took on shades of gray, so I couldn’t be one hundred percent positive, but it could have been the same gnome, now standing a few feet inside the entryway. Same height, same rubbed-out face, same creepy ambience that all yard gnomes have.
Cold air blew through the open door behind me, so I pushed it closed, keeping my eye on the gnome. It didn’t move. Well, I didn’t really expect it to come to life, did I? Yard gnomes don’t come to life, not in the real world. Then I thought, with a pang of sadness, that the real world was gone, the world I knew before Bernard Samson, OIPEP, the Sword of Kings, and the Seal of Solomon came into my life.
That world was gone and never coming back, even if we somehow got the genie back in the bottle. Like Dr. Merryweather had said, we had crossed the threshold into a new reality, and maybe it wasn’t looking into the demon’s eyes that had me so screwed up—maybe it was the loss of everything that made sense to me.
“Okay, look,” I said to the gnome. “I’m not afraid of you.” Probably the first time in the history of the world anyone had said that to a yard gnome—also probably the first time anyone had ever lied to a yard gnome.
He just stared back at me wearing that sly little grin.
To heck with it. “Op Nine!” I shouted. “Op Nine, where are you?”
The lights in the entryway blazed on and the floorboards creaked behind me. I whirled around, jamming my hand into my coat pocket, fumbling for the mini-3XD Op Nine had given me in the car.
An old lady stood by the front door, wearing purple house slippers with a flowery print that matched her robe. On her left hand she wore an oven mitt. In her right, she held a gun, pointed directly at the center of my forehead.
“If you move, dear, you’re dead,” she announced.
“I’m going to take my hand out of my pocket,” I said. “Okay?”
She nodded. “Slowly, dear. It’s late and I’m jumpy.”
I slowly brought my right hand into view and then raised both into the air.
“I’m not a burglar,” I said.
She smiled. I got an eyeful of large, sparkling white teeth with oversized incisors, just like Mike’s. She had a small head and a wide, round face, crisscrossed with wrinkles and deep creases, her eyes bright blue and kind.
She dropped the gun into the pocket of her robe and I took that as a signal I could lower my hands. We stood there for a second, staring at each other.
“I’m Alfred Kropp,” I said.
“I know who you are, dear,” she said. “Michael said you might show up. Well, not you specifically, but someone from his company.”
“That’s actually who I came in looking for,” I said.
“Well, you won’t find him here. I sent him on his way. Police detective!” She trilled a little laugh.
“That’s good,” I said. “I was afraid maybe you shot him.”
I was trapped between her and the yard gnome by the stairs. Why would someone put a yard gnome by their stairs?
“I’ve baked an apple pie, Alfred. Would you like a slice?”
“I’m not really that hungry.”
“I insist.”
“I guess I am a little hungry.”
“After you, dear. To your left.”
I walked through the formal dining room and into the kitchen, which was decorated in a country theme, rooster figurines and Jersey cow kitchen doodads and a red and white checkered tablecloth on the table.
The pie was sitting on the sill over the sink, and steam still rose from its golden brown lace crust. My stomach rumbled. I was starving.
“Please sit down, Alfred,” she said, waving me toward the table. “A few more minutes to cool and it’s ready to slice. A la mode, dear?”
I cleared my throat. “Just the pie, ma’am. That’s fine.”
I wondered where Op Nine was. Probably scrambling around outside, looking for me, though I wondered how I missed him. Most likely he was beside himself, while I sat in Mama Arnold’s kitchen, eating pie.
“How do you know my name?” I asked.
“Michael’s told me all about you.”
“Where is Mike?”
“I have no idea, dear.”
She pulled a gallon of milk from the refrigerator and poured a big frosty glass. She set it on the table in front of me. She smelled of vanilla.
“Somebody told us you were on a cruise,” I said.
“Mike made up that story. He wanted me to leave, of course, but why would I leave? I may be old, dear, but I can take care of myself. I go for target practice twice a month.”
“Well,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say. “Eve
rybody needs a hobby.”
Right by the litter box stood another gnome. And there were gnome refrigerator door magnets and gnome figurines standing like little guards around the pie pan on the sill.
“You like gnomes,” I said.
“Gnomes keep evil spirits away.”
“You’re worried about evil spirits?”
“Aren’t you?”
“Mike’s told you what happened?”
She was standing on her tiptoes by the sink—she was only about five feet tall—sticking her nose near the pie.
“I had to know why he was so desperate to get me out of this house.”
She put on another oven mitt and picked up the pie. She set it on the counter and shook off the mitts. Her hands were very small, but her knuckles were big, from arthritis, I guessed, and mottled with age spots. She grabbed a big knife and cut a fat slice that she slid onto a little plate with a picture of a gnome painted in the middle.
“He’s a good boy, but he associates with the wrong sort of people—not you, Alfred. You’re a wonderful child with great potential. I hate to see you squander it on people like those Mike used to work with.”
She cocked her round little head and her voice dropped.
“Listen to that!”
It was the freezing rain, the little pellets smacking against the roof and the kitchen window.
“I do hope something can be done soon,” she said. “I’m worried about my spring bulbs.”
“That’s why it’s real important we find Mike, ma’am,” I said. “We can’t do anything about it till we find him.”
She placed the pie in front of me and stood back, folding her arms across her chest and just beaming down at me.
“Taste it, Alfred,” she said. “I am the best baker in the tri-counties.”
“Maybe just a bite,” I said. “But then I have to go. Op— my friend’s probably wondering what happened to me.”
But I figured I might be able to worm some clues out of this old lady. I didn’t believe she didn’t know where Mike was. Maybe if I was nice and ate some of her pie she would let down her guard some and tell me where he was hiding.
I took a big bite of pie as she stood over me, smiling sweetly, and I have to admit there was a little pain in my heart because everything seemed so normal. You don’t realize how much normal, boring things like eating pie late at night in a warm kitchen matter until those things are taken from you.
Something crunched in my mouth. Thinking I must have bitten into a piece of stem, I reached in and pulled out a long gray stick. It didn’t look like wood, though. It was jagged on one end and dangling from the other by a glistening piece of tissue was a partially chewed eyeball.
I dropped the small bone onto the table and shoved myself away, knocking the chair over, my stomach heaving as I spat and gagged and tears burned in my eyes. My tongue was covered with fuzz and I frantically scraped it with my fingernail, bringing out tufts of orange and white fur.
“What’s the matter, Alfred?” she asked. “Don’t you like cats?”
There wasn’t time to indulge myself in nausea. I ripped the mini-3XD from my pocket and took aim at her round, doll-shaped head.
“Where is he?” I demanded in a loud, high-pitched voice. “Where’s Op Nine?”
“Why, he went upstairs, dear.”
I started to back out of the room, keeping the gun pointed at her. “You’re not Mike Arnold’s mom,” I said.
She didn’t say anything. Her blue eyes danced and behind those eyes I recognized something. Something I had seen in the Sahara. Something that knew me.
“There are many rooms upstairs, Alfred,” she whispered. “One door but many rooms. A person should be careful which room he enters.”
She made no move to stop me. I turned and ran through the formal dining room, whipping around the corner toward the stairs where the yard gnome still kept guard. I kicked it as hard as I could and started up the stairs. Then something grabbed my pants leg. I felt long claws or nails sinking into my ankle, and I didn’t have to look to know it was the gnome or something posing as a gnome, and I thought that was particularly fiendish and nasty, posing as something that was supposed to protect people from evil spirits.
Op Nine had told me back in the desert that if you looked into their eyes they would know what you feared and loved.
I was about to find out exactly what he meant.
38
I took the stairs two at a time, hardly feeling the gnome’s claws digging into my flesh. I stopped about halfway up and, holding my breath, aimed at the little grayish green cap near my leg. I fired the 3XD, certain I was going to lame myself. But my shot was true—the muzzle was only a few inches from its head—and the thing blew apart into flecks of black and orange and gold.
I started back up. At the top of the landing the very thing I expected to find was there: another yard gnome.
I didn’t hesitate. I pointed the barrel of the demon blaster right at its enigmatic little smile and wasted it.
Behind me I could hear little scratching noises and tiny voices whispering, though I couldn’t make out the words. More gnomes. I didn’t want to use up the entire clip on gnomes, so I made a beeline toward the end of the upstairs hallway.
She had been telling the truth about one thing, at least. There was only one door up here, at the end of the hall, which I knew wasn’t the normal setup in house plans, and I remembered Op Nine saying in the briefing at headquarters how some demons can alter reality.
The old Alfred Kropp would have hesitated at that door. Maybe even under these very weird circumstances I would have knocked, but the old me had been scooped out hollow by a demon and the new me wasn’t about to let the same thing happen to Op Nine.
“Saint Michael,” I whispered softly. “Protect me.”
Then I kicked the door right off its hinges.
I whipped the 3XD in an arc, like I’d seen on a hundred cop shows and movies, my left hand gripping my right wrist.
I was standing in a hospital room. The room was empty, the bed neatly made, and the only sound was the TV on its wall mount opposite the bed. The Price Is Right was on. I had been in this room before, and my first thought was, It’s a lie. Don’t panic. It’s another lie. I didn’t know what the deal was with this room, but I didn’t have time to puzzle over it. I had to find Op Nine. I turned, and when I turned she called out to me.
“Alfred.”
I froze. I knew that voice. It had been a long time since I had heard it, but since it was the first voice I had ever heard, I recognized it immediately.
It was a trick. I knew it was a trick and I knew Op Nine was still somewhere in the house and his only hope of survival lay in Alfred Kropp keeping his focus, but something made me turn back. I guess it was hope that made me turn back. I was about to find out they could use that against you too.
The bed wasn’t empty anymore.
“Ah, come on,” I said to the person in the bed. “This isn’t fair.”
“Sit down, Alfred,” Mom said. “We need to talk.”
“I’m not going to sit down,” I said. “I need to find Op Nine.”
“There is no such person. Now stop being silly and sit down.”
“If there’s no such person,” I said, “then how’d I get this?” I showed her the 3XD. My hand was shaking.
“Alfred, you know how.”
I lowered the weapon. I knew the smart thing to do at that point. And the longer I let her talk, the harder the smart thing to do would be, but how does anyone in his right mind blow away his own mother?
I swallowed hard. “You’re going to tell me I’m dreaming.”
“You are dreaming.”
“It’s all been just a horrible dream.”
“Well, of course it has. You fell asleep, Alfred, sitting right in that chair.”
“And I’m really twelve years old and you’re still alive.”
“Of course, my darling.”
Tears shone in her ey
es and I looked away. I always looked away when she cried. I couldn’t take it.
“That’s mean,” I whispered. “That’s really mean. That’s stepping over the line.”
I sank into the chair beside her bed and leaned over, my elbows on my knees, the 3XD now hanging loosely in my hand.
“Alfred, I’m all you have.”
“Stop it,” I said.
“All you have in the world. Of course you would dream of being a hero, a brave knight riding to my rescue. But you know such things don’t really exist, don’t you, baby? Holy swords and demonic yard gnomes, Alfred? You know it can’t be real.”
I nodded.
“Alfred, your father wasn’t a business tycoon or the last son of Lancelot. He was a big-headed, long-haul truck driver named Herman.”
“My dad . . . my dad was a trucker?”
“Watermelons. Doesn’t that make more sense than what you’ve been dreaming?”
I nodded. “You bet it does.”
“And isn’t that what you want most of all, Alfred? For everything to make sense?”
I lifted my head and looked at her. The same skeletal face, the same deep-set, black-ringed eyes, the same yellowish skin and thin gray lips pulled back from her teeth. Just like four years ago (if it really was four years ago), it was Mom and it wasn’t Mom.
“So what do I do now?” I asked.
“Wake up, honey. That’s all. Just . . . wake up.”
She smiled at me, and it was her smile, my mom’s smile.
“It isn’t right,” I mumbled. “It’s not fair. You’re all that I had—why did you leave me alone? I’m so sick of being alone—I don’t want to be alone anymore!”
“Alfred, I know, I know,” she cried. “But you have to be strong for me, baby. I need you now. All we have is each other, and I need you to be strong for me now.”
I nodded. “Okay. Okay, Mom. I can . . . I can be strong . . .”
“Then you have to wake up, Alfred.”
“How—how do I do that? How do I wake up?”
“Look.”
She pointed toward the door. I had kicked it off its hinges—I distinctly remembered kicking it off its hinges—but now it was whole again and closed, and sprawled on the floor with his back against it was Op Nine, his chin against his chest so I couldn’t see his face.