Aftershock & Others by F. Paul Wilson Read Free Book Online Page A

Marc hadn’t had the slightest suspicion…
    “He said you ducked into an old apartment house in Brooklyn and never came out.”
    “Oh, yes…” Marc said carefully. “I spotted him shortly after I left your place. He was good. I couldn’t lose him in the usual manner so I led him all the way into Bay Ridge and used the key I have from the owner of this dump there—in the front door and out the back. I always do that when I think I’m being followed.” He rubbed his chin, Bogart style. “So he was one of Liz’s boys. That’s interesting.”
    More than interesting—terrifying.
    “Yeah, she’s determined to track you down,” LuAnn said, snuggling closer. “But she’s not going to be first, is she, Marky? You’re going to take me to your place firstest, aren’t you?”
    “Sure, Lu. You’ll be the first. But I warn you, you’ll be disappointed when the day comes.”
    “No I won’t.”
    Yes, you will. I guarantee it.
    He sat next to her and tried to keep from shaking. God, that had been close! He’d been right on the edge of having his cover blown and hadn’t had an inkling. Suddenly Marc didn’t feel so good.
    “Excuse me a moment,” he said, rising. “I need to make a pit stop.” He winked. “It’s a long ride from Bay Ridge.”
    LuAnn laughed. “Hurry back!”
    Feeling worse by the minute, he headed straight for the men’s room. As he pushed into the bright fluorescent interior, he saw Karl Peaks turning away from the sink, licking a trace of white powder from his index finger.
    “Marc?” Peaks said, sniffing and gawking. “Is that you, man?”
    “No. It’s Enrico Caruso.” Enrico Caruso? Where the hell did that come from?
    “It’s your face, man. What’s happened to it?”
    Alarmed, Marc stepped over the mirror. His knees almost buckled when he saw himself.
    My face!
    His skin was sallow, leaching into yellow under the harsh light. And the left side was drooping, the corners of his mouth and left eye sagging toward his chin.
    My God! What’s happening?
    He couldn’t stay here, couldn’t let anyone see him like this. Because it wasn’t going to get better. Somehow he knew that the longer he waited the worse it would sag.
    He spun and fled past Peaks, turned a hard right and went down the back steps, through the kitchen, and out into the rear alley.
    It had started raining. He slunk through the puddles like a rat until he found an intersecting alley that took him out to West Houston. He flagged a cab and huddled in the protective darkness of the rear seat as it carried him through the downpour, over the Williamsburg Bridge to Brooklyn. Home.
     
    Doug watched Marc flow back into the bucket, sliding down his arm, over his wrist and hand, to ooze off his fingertips like clear, warm wallpaper paste. A part of him was furious with Marc for letting him down tonight, but another part knew something was seriously wrong. He’d half-sensed it during the last time they’d been together. And tonight he was sure. Marc wasn’t acting right.
    Marc …Christ, why did he call this pile of goo Marc? It was goo . A nameless it . Marc Chevignon was someone who existed only when Doug was wearing the goo. He’d picked the name Marc because it sounded classy, like Marc Antony, that Roman guy in the Cleopatra movie. And Chevignon? He’d borrowed that from the label inside some fancy leather coat he’d seen in a men’s shop.
    Somewhere along the way he’d started thinking of the goo as a friend…a friend named Marc.
    “What’s the matter, Marc?” he whispered into the bucket when the goo had all run off him. “What’s goin’ on, man?”
    Marc didn’t answer. He just sat in his bucket under the harsh light of the white-tiled bathroom. Marc never answered. At least not from the bucket. Marc only spoke when he was riding Doug. Marc was brilliant when he was riding Doug. At least till now.
    Doug remembered the first time Marc climbed on him, down in the basement, when he’d reached into the