Desolation Read online

  When she’d finished watching the final episode of the season – it had ended on a cliffhanger, of course it had ended on a cliffhanger – she took out the earbuds and sat back, absorbing the drama. The cafe was almost full by now, with people eyeing her table covetously.

  Brenda saw that she had emerged from the screen, and came over. “Can I get you the cheque?”

  Amber thought for a moment. “No, thanks,” she said. “But I’ll take a look at your lunch menu.”

  Brenda made a big deal out of sighing, and headed off to fetch a menu. Amber grinned to herself.

  She checked her phone, saw no message from Milo, and logged on to the Dark Places forum. Her bandaged hands made typing difficult, but not impossible.

  The Dark Princess said …

  I have returned …

  RetroGamer! said …

  Hi Proncess

  *princess

  Sith0Dude said …

  hey

  RetroGamer! said …

  Damn typos.

  Elven Queen said …

  Princess!! We missed u!

  Thoughts on finale?

  Sith0Dude said …

  Hey Elven Queen

  The Dark Princess said …

  Just saw it. WOW.

  Though kinda knew they wouldn’t let Gideon die off so easily.

  Elven Queen said …

  Yeah, saw that twist coming from 3 episodes ago!

  Sith0Dude said …

  why is everyone ignoring me?

  RetroGamer! said …

  Was talking to BAC 10 minutes ago

  Balthazar’s-Arm-Candy said …

  There’s my girl!

  The Dark Princess said …

  BAC!

  The world is a brighter place once more!

  Balthazar’s-Arm-Candy said …

  How’ve u been doing? Things been sorted since last time we chatted? *fingers crossed*

  The Dark Princess said …

  Not really, but I’m bravely fighting my way through it!

  Sith0Dude said …

  ur all ignoring me

  Balthazar’s-Arm-Candy said …

  Made up your mind about the con yet? Full cast PLUS Annalith’s gonna be there.

  Wish I could go.

  Elven Queen said …

  Not ignoring you, Sith0Dude.

  The Dark Princess said …

  Haven’t really been thinking about it, but don’t think it’ll be possible. Things are still screwy

  RetroGamer! said …

  Everything ok, Princess?

  The Dark Princess said …

  I’m fine. Life’s just weird at the moment and not looking like it’ll ever go back to normal.

  Elven Queen said …

  Normal is boring.

  Balthazar’s-Arm-Candy said …

  You back in Florida yet?

  The Dark Princess said …

  Furthest thing from it. Alaska! LOL

  Sith0Dude said …

  the north pole?

  The Dark Princess said …

  Alaska isn’t the north pole.

  Is it?

  RetroGamer! said …

  No.

  Balthazar’s-Arm-Candy said …

  Penguins live in the south pole, polar bears live in the north pole. That’s the rule.

  Look out your window, Princess. What do u see?

  The Dark Princess said …

  Cars and people. No polar bears or penguins.

  Sith0Dude said …

  if you can’t see penguins u must be on north pole.

  penguins would be everywhere on south cuz of no natural predators.

  The Dark Princess said …

  I don’t think that’s right, Sith0Dude.

  Sith0Dude said …

  No LAND based predators I meant. But they are prey to a range of top predators in the oceans.

  Some penguins can swim up to 22 mph.

  They get rid of saltwater they’ve swallowed by sneezing.

  Elven Queen said …

  Are you googling penguin facts, Sith0Dude?

  Sith0Dude said …

  no. just like penguins

  Balthazar’s-Arm-Candy said …

  How’s Wi-Fi in Alaska, Princess?

  The Dark Princess said …

  Better than expected! In a cafe right now and just streamed 4 eps without a problem. Say 1 thing for those polar bears, they know their Wi-Fi!

  Sith0Dude said …

  Most people think penguins mate for life, but Emperor Penguins usually take a mate for one year at a time

  Elven Queen said …

  Shut up about penguins Sith0Dude.

  The Dark Princess said …

  Gotta go guys. RL has just walked in.

  Balthazar’s-Arm-Candy said …

  When will u be on next?

  The Dark Princess said …

  Hard to say, got a lot going on. Laters!

  Milo sat at the table and Amber logged off the messageboard.

  “The Hounds still where they’re supposed to be?” she asked.

  “They are. I followed one of them when he rode around the outskirts. Every so often, he’d test the barrier. Looks like it surrounds the whole town. We would appear to be safe, but I’m heading back out this afternoon, just to make sure. What have you been doing?”

  Amber couldn’t help it. She smiled. “Just chatting with my friends.”

  “And how are they?”

  “Good. Still reeling from the final episode of Dark Places. It was brilliant. I’d tell you about it, but I don’t want to spoil anything.”

  “I’m never going to watch that show,” Milo said, beckoning Brenda over.

  “You should,” said Amber. “It’s better than those westerns you like.”

  Milo grunted, then gave one of his smiles to Brenda that the waitress clearly appreciated. “Hey there,” he said. “Could I have a coffee, if it’s not too much trouble? Black, no sugar.”

  “Regular old coffee,” said Brenda, “you got it. Anything else?”

  “Nothing I can think of right now, thank you.”

  Brenda nodded, practically curtsied, and hurried away.

  “Doesn’t that get annoying?” Amber asked.

  “Doesn’t what get annoying?” Milo said.

  “That,” said Amber. “Women falling over themselves whenever you smile at them.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Oh, come on. You do that smiley thing and they go weak at the knees every time.”

  “That ‘smiley thing’ is me smiling.”

  “Yeah, but it’s not, though, is it? You give them the extra big grin to get them blushing.”

  “Hate to disappoint you, Amber, but my smile is the same size regardless of who I’m talking to.”

  “So you’re telling me that if Brenda was a dude, you’d give him the same smile?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Because you’re flirting. Just admit it.”

  “I admit no such thing because I’m not flirting. You’ll know when I’m flirting with someone because it’ll be really obvious and really bad.”

  “You flirted with that lady back in Cascade Falls.”

  “Veronica.”

  “And did you or did you not get laid because of it?”

  “What I did or did not do is none of your business, but that wasn’t flirting. That was talking. I’m okay at talking, when I’m in a talkative mood, and sometimes talking leads to other things.”

  “Some people would call that flirting.”

  “I call it being friendly.”

  The woman at the next table got up to leave, but dropped her purse. Milo picked it up, handed it back to her. She smiled and he winked and she giggled.

  As she walked away, Amber stared at Milo. “You winked at her.”

  Milo frowned. “What? No, I didn’t.”

  “You so did! You actually winked at her!”

  “Did I?”

 
“I can’t believe you just did that.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” Milo said. “What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “What’s your flirting technique like?”

  “I don’t have one,” she said.

  “Sure you do.”

  Amber shook her head. “It is literally non-existent, and I use literally both in the literal and figurative senses.”

  “You just need practice,” Milo said. “Find someone you’d like to flirt with and strike up a conversation.”

  “Like who?” she said, laughing.

  “I don’t know,” Milo answered, looking around. He nodded to a young guy across the cafe. “How about him?”

  Amber smiled. “I don’t think so.”

  “Coward.”

  “He’s just not my type.”

  “What is your type?”

  She shrugged. “Not him.”

  Brenda came over with Milo’s coffee.

  “Thanks very much,” he said. Brenda smiled and blushed and hurried to another table before she melted.

  Milo took a sip, and didn’t meet Amber’s gaze.

  “Shut up,” he said.

  WHAT HE HAD, and let there be no mistaking this, was a bona-fide mystery on his hands.

  A murder mystery, to be exact. How many of those fell into the lap of someone like him every day? A murder mystery with police collusion. He knew what they called that, of course. They called it conspiracy.

  Were all the cops in on it? He had no way of knowing. Novak and Woodbury, certainly, and maybe that other one, Officer Duncan. The one that never smiled. He doubted Lucy Thornton was involved – she always struck him as an honest sort of cop. And if Thornton was honest maybe her pal Ortmann was, too. But again he couldn’t be sure. They could all be part of this.

  His heart was beating faster all of a sudden. This probably wasn’t a good thing, but for once Virgil didn’t mind. He was taking his pills and that’s all anyone could be expected to do in his position. He had a mystery to solve, after all.

  Sure, his paranoia had been getting to him. Every creak in his house was a footstep. Every passing car was a police cruiser, come to silence him. He wasn’t getting much sleep. He wasn’t eating much. But so what? He had important things to be doing, for God’s sake. For the seventh time that day, he checked the windows and doors, made sure they were locked.

  He watched an old man in a blue jacket shuffle along the sidewalk, reading from a scrap of paper and then looking up and around. Lost and confused, the same way Virgil spent most of his days. Not anymore, though. He realised, with a smile, that purpose had crept into his life when he wasn’t looking. What an odd sensation that was.

  He set about making himself a sandwich. He had to keep his strength up, even if he wasn’t hungry. He laid out his ingredients, but hadn’t even buttered the bread when there was a knock on the door. His good mood soured. That would be Mrs Galloway. Every year she knocked on his door, gave him that condescending smile, and enquired as to his well-being before asking about his plans for Hell Night with all the grace and subtlety of a … a …

  Goddammit, he couldn’t even think of a suitable insult.

  Walking to the front door, he did his best to stifle his anger. It wasn’t easy. She wouldn’t even call it Hell Night. She called it “the festival” around him, as if he’d never heard the actual name in all of his years here. Condescending busybody that she was. He reached the door, calmed down, put a neutral expression on his face, and then opened it.

  The old man in the blue jacket stood there. For a moment, Virgil didn’t know who it was. He was probably around Virgil’s own age. Hispanic. Shrunken. Then it came to him.

  “Goat-molester?”

  Javier Santorum snarled. When he did so, his false teeth clacked in his mouth. He drew back his spindly arm, his liver-spotted hand clenching into a liver-spotted fist. As a younger man, he’d telegraphed every punch in every fight scene they’d ever had (those in which he hadn’t been replaced with a stuntman) and it seemed his real-life technique wasn’t much better. He swung his fist in a wide, unsteady arc that Virgil could easily have dodged, back in the old days. But now, even though he saw it coming, he was still too slow to avoid it.

  Javier’s fist bounced painfully off his cheek.

  “Ow,” said Virgil.

  “Yeah,” said Javier triumphantly. “How’d you like them—”

  Javier had been a stage magician before he’d become an actor – Javier Santorum, Circus Magician and Escape Artist! – but Virgil had been a boxer, and those instincts never leave you. His left jab had slowed considerably over the years, but it still had that snap to it, and he still landed it with unerring precision, right on the point of Javier’s chin. Javier’s eyes crossed and his legs gave out, and he sat down faster than he’d probably managed for quite some time, and then flattened out on Virgil’s front porch.

  “Oh goddammit,” said Virgil.

  For a moment, he wondered if he’d killed him, but the rise and fall of Javier’s pigeon chest assured him that no, the idiot was still alive. He couldn’t leave him out on the porch, though. It wasn’t so much that the neighbours might wonder what was going on, but that Javier might get carried off by a bear or something on its way past. What an undignified way to go.

  So Virgil prepared himself and, moving slowly, took a good grip on each of Javier’s matchstick ankles. Straightening up even slower than he’d bent down, he got himself in a good position, and pulled. Dragging Javier into the house was easier than he’d expected. The man seemed to consist of nothing more than dried kindling and leathered skin. His head bounced off the doorsill and Virgil grinned.

  When he was inside, Virgil closed the door and went to fetch a glass of water. He stood over Javier, then, about to upend it over the other man’s face, when his mischievous streak lit up. He poured half of the water on to Javier’s crotch, and the rest he dumped on Javier’s face.

  Javier spluttered, coughed, turned his head away and wiped his eyes. “What the hell … what the hell’re you doing?”

  Virgil put the glass on the hall table. “Reviving you,” he said. “You looked dead.”

  “That’s how I always look, you sonofabitch. You hit me!”

  “You hit me first.”

  “You deserved it!”

  “Sorry I called you Goat-molester,” Virgil said. “It was the first thing that came into my head, honestly.”

  “I don’t need your damn apology!”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “I came here to kick your ass!”

  “You might want to do that from a standing position.”

  “Screw you! I’ll get up in my own time!”

  “Right. Sure. You wet yourself, by the way.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake …”

  Javier struggled into a sitting position, then wiped at his crotch with dismay.

  “Need some help?” Virgil asked.

  “Not from the likes of you!”

  Virgil shrugged.

  Javier rubbed his chin. “You sucker-punched me.”

  “No, I hit you back.”

  “Yeah, when I wasn’t expecting it. I might have concussion. If my brain swells tonight, you’re to blame. Everyone will know you killed me.”

  “Not if I leave you out for the bears.”

  “There are bears?” Javier said quickly, looking around like he expected one to come ambling through from the bathroom.

  “This is Alaska,” said Virgil. “We have everything here. Javier, are you sure you don’t want any help getting off the floor? You’re a long way down, and it’s a long way up.”

  “I can do it myself,” said Javier. “Look at you, talking like an old man. You probably need those handles in the tub, don’t you?”

  “Yeah,” said Virgil. “I also have a seat in the shower.”

  “Ha! Like an old man!”

  “Says the guy who can’t get up off my floor.”

  “I’m waiti
ng for my second wind!”

  “What are you doing here, Javier? Why’d they even let you out?”

  “Let me out?” said Javier. “It’s a retirement village, not a goddamn prison camp! I leave when I want to leave! If I want to catch a plane, I catch a plane! Don’t you be treating me like I’m an old man. I ain’t dead yet!” Moving slowly, and carefully, Javier turned over on to his hands and knees.

  Virgil watched him. “Did you travel across the country just so you could hit me?”

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” Javier wheezed, crawling to the wall. “Hitting you was a bonus. Hitting you made the trip sweeter.”

  “So why are you here?”

  “The mystery,” Javier grunted. Using the wall to steady himself, he started getting to his feet. Virgil stared at him. He knew about the murder? How the hell did he know about the murder?

  “My doppelgänger,” Javier continued. “Want to … see him for myself. See if he … really is my double.” Finally, Javier was standing again. “Oh, thank Christ,” he muttered.

  “Someone looks a little like you and you immediately get on a plane?”

  Javier glared. “You said he looked exactly like me. That’s what you said.”

  “I know what I said, but you couldn’t have known that I wasn’t exaggerating. You took my word on something like that? Why?”

  “Because I want to see him, goddammit. Is that so hard to understand? If I have a double who looks just like me from years ago, I want to meet him. Comprende?”

  “You can’t meet him.”

  “The hell I can’t! Where’d you see him? Just tell me where you saw him and I’ll do the rest.”

  “He was in my neighbour’s house …”

  “Well, okay!”

  “… killing my neighbour.”

  Javier paused. “What’s that you say?”

  “You heard.”