Napier's Bones by Derryl Murphy Read Free Book Online Page B

stricken
at this, and Dom reached out and put a hand on her arm. “You asked to get into
this. I could tell you stories that would
really
raise the hairs on
the back of your neck, but I won’t. At least not right now. In the meantime, I
should finish, right?”
    She nodded.
    “Anyhow, it took
two days, but once I managed to get out of the city I drove north, and while on
the road I spotted numbers on the horizon. Not really strong, but weird enough
to get my attention. I followed them and they led me to Randall’s place. And
then they faded away. I think that the events around then had flipped a switch
somewhere in Randall’s brain; he was panicked enough about the terrorist
attacks and about his own life right then that he subconsciously cast out
numbers as a call for help, and I happened to be the numerate in the right
place and the right time, probably the only one not paying attention to the
attacks.”
    Dom started up
the car and pulled out. “Need to get to the bank,” he explained, before
continuing. “Randall lived on the second floor, and the doors just popped open
for me as I approached, both the front entrance and then the one to his
apartment. I didn’t have to do anything with my own numbers.” He signalled left
and, instead of racing to beat a light just turning yellow, waved his fingers
and mumbled a string of numbers instead. The light reverted to green. “When I
walked into his apartment, Randall had no idea who the hell I was, and I didn’t
know squat about him, either. But neither one of us was terribly surprised,
either.”
    “He was
expecting you,” said Jenna.
    “He was
expecting someone,” replied Billy. “Dom just happened to be that someone.”
    Dom nodded his
head. “Right. He was lying there in bed, enormous, like a fucking hippo,
covered with a sheet. His TV was blaring away, a cable news channel, talking
heads alternating with pictures of the towers collapsing over and over and over
again, and beside him, on a small wooden chair, was a full and rather smelly
bedpan.”
    “Ew.” Jenna
wrinkled her nose. “That’s disgusting.”
    “Tell me about
it.” Dom pulled out into oncoming traffic to pass an especially slow driver,
dipped back into his lane just in time to avoid a dump truck that was about to
swerve out of the way. “It’s funny,” continued Dom, “but I didn’t even pay
attention to those things. Didn’t even know they were there until after I’d
left. Then the pictures of everything in the apartment dropped into my brain
like a slide popping into a projector and shining on the screen.”
    “Why not?” asked
Billy.
    “Because when I
walked into that apartment I almost collapsed. My knees just about buckled, I
could barely lift my feet to walk or my hands to lift my suddenly weighty hair
out of my eyes. Hell, I could barely catch a breath. Turns out old Randall’s
weight thing was being passed on to everything in his localized area. He
couldn’t control his own numbers, but they sure could control him, and his own
little world. Any visitors to his apartment felt the sudden weight gain, but
also all of his crap. It was all fucking heavy, from the bedpan that could
probably only be lifted with a forklift—”
    “To the stamps
sitting in a drawer somewhere,” finished Jenna.
    “Well, not in a
drawer. Sitting on the kitchen table. But yeah, that’s right. Heavy as shit.
And probably worse at that time because he was so freaked out.”
    “So you stole them?
Is this how you get all of your mojo?”
    Dom rolled his
eyes. “Let me finish the story, Jenna. Think of this as one of your lessons.”
    She nodded, lips
pursed.
    “So Randall
looked me in the eye, the end of the fucking world playing and replaying on his
TV, and he asks me, ‘Am I going to be all right?’ His voice was high and whiny
like a scared little kid. I pause for a second, then realize what it is he’s
asking, and I nod and say, ‘Yeah, you’re going to be fine.’ He stares at me for
a