Free Dead Souls by J. Lincoln Fenn Page A

fingers.
    The rain stops. Instantaneous. I can hear other sounds nowthat had been drowned out by the rain, the thrum of traffic on the freeway, the rumble of a nearby garbage truck.
    â€œNo.” I take a step back. “What you’re saying . . . it’s not real . . . it can’t be real.”
    â€œPerhaps there are more things in heaven and earth, Fiona, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
    It’s impossible to breathe. Impossible to speak.
    â€œLike devils,” he says softly. “And souls. And hell. What some call damnation, but I call liberation.”
    Maybe it’s the impossible that’s possible .
    He snaps his fingers again, and the deluge resumes.
    â€œGet the fuck out of here!” I take two more shaky steps back. “Get the . . . I don’t know what the hell your game is, but—”
    Suddenly I hear the door open behind me and turn just as the security guard steps out.
    â€œHey, you okay?” he says. “You’ve been standing out here for a while.”
    The glass door seems to swing shut in slow motion behind him—in the reflection I see the back of his head where he’s starting to go bald, the tag from his shirt poking up behind the collar—and when I turn back to the car, no one’s there.
    Scratch is gone. Vanished. Not a sound as he left.

    I DRIVE, AND DRIVE, AND DRIVE. Eighth to Broadway, Broadway to Nineteenth, Nineteenth to Telegraph. I don’t have a destination in mind, but then I don’t feel like I have much of a mind at the moment. Instead, I concentrate on the present. The here and now. Dark sheets of rain fall that the windshieldwipers can’t keep up with; they just blur the taillights in front of me, turning everything into a Monet wash. I click on the radio. Anything for a distraction.
    â€œ. . . residents of Monterrey, Mexico, were shocked to discover the bodies of four children, ten women, and five men in the main lodge of the eight-million-dollar ranch, founded by cult leader and proclaimed incarnation of Jesus, Alexi Maximus. Maximus, a Russian defector and former janitor, began teaching his brand of ‘enlightened’ apocalyptic scripture in San Francisco, where he developed a following of wealthy patrons . . .”
    Wonderful . I feel numb, anesthetized. I feel like I’m wearing a Halloween mask over a new, truer face. I drive slowly, huddled over the steering wheel, my foot pressing the brake for each sudden stop prompted by the nervous SUV in front of me—a soccer mom probably, lugging kids and worried about hydroplaning.
    I could have hallucinated Scratch just now too . It’s a halfhearted thought though, no real muscle behind it.
    â€œ. . . all suicides, except for the children, who were given brownies poisoned with a fatal dose of barbiturates . . .”
    I click to another station. “The armed robber shot six people in the bank before turning the gun on himself after a ten-hour standoff with police . . .”
    Click . I need to find some jazz. That’s always good for a rainy day, but it’s spot-on the half hour so it’s all news or ads. “Bad credit? No credit? No problem! Our financial experts  . . .”
    Movement catches my eye, and I see a driver in the opposite lane slow down to avoid a clump in the road—clothes, trash, hard to say—but there’s something strange about the driver, I note a faint, shadowy aura around him, feel a magneticpull. He must notice me looking, because he meets my eye, gives a grim nod before continuing past me.
    What the . . .
    After that, I’m grateful for the sudden starts and stops of the SUV in front of me, because it gives me a chance to closely examine the passengers and drivers in cars, people darting through the rain for this or that business, either bothering with umbrellas or not, diners in well-lit cafés enjoying lattes with