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* * * * *

“Whoa, look at the time!” said Arnie, standing to leave. “Mr. Wong, it’s been a hell of a lot of fun talkin’ to you. But I should start my drive back, I got six hours ahead of me. The piece may not run next month, but soon. They may want to run it on Halloween, you know.”

“Arnie, please. You came all this way. Don’t walk away thinking what you’re thinking.”

He dug his car keys from his pocket. “I’m not here to judge, I said that already. The shotgun, hey, the roofers could have left that behind. And maybe that deer got fed up with the local hunters and ate one of them, including the shotgun shells the poor guy had in his pocket.”

He pulled out a cigar from an inside pocket and jammed it into his mouth.

“No, it’s nothing like that. I think the sauce, it gave Wexler the ability to project, to—to manifest things to try to kill us but I think we were able to counter him, to do the same thing. I think it all comes down to the sauce, the ability to bring these things into the world with just the power of our imaginations. I think it all came out of our heads.”

“You know what I think?” Arnie began, words slurring around the cigar. “After you told me the part about Las Vegas, you know how I said it was the stupidest story I had ever heard?“

“You didn’t say that.”

“Well, I was thinkin’ it. But I’ve decided I owe that Las Vegas story an apology because this last thing made that one look like The Grapes of Wrath. I’ll see ya around.”

Arnie walked toward the door. I followed, stopping quickly to pay the lady at the counter.

“So, anyway,” I stammered as he pushed through the door, “I got, you know, all that paperwork on the Hyundai and the accident and all that. The insurance company, they took pictures of the scene and, well, you can’t really see anything but they describe the scene in the report, the dead roaches and all that. I went back that next morning and I got a hand, a clump of the bugs in the shape of, of the fingers. I got it at home...”

Nothing from Arnie. He didn’t even nod.

“In my tool shed, in a jar. I can show it to you. I mean, what kind of a person would fake that, would sit at home and glue a bunch of roaches together? ‘Honey, what are you doing?’ ‘Oh, I’m making a roach-hand. You know, to aid my credibility with the press.’”

Arnie said, “The kid you say you killed during the Las Vegas thing? Fred Chu? Say I go looking into that, his disappearance.”

I hesitated. “Do it. Those records are out there. That’s why I admitted I shot him, Arnie. To prove I’m not making this up, I wouldn’t have told you that otherwise. I’ve been honest with you, I keep saying that.”

“So you admit killing him?”

“Off the record, yeah.”

“And the other kid that died, Big Jim-“

“-He’s really dead, too. You can look it up.”

“I already did. But Big Jim, he would have gone to the cops about Fred, wouldn’t he? That you shot Fred? He didn’t seem too happy about it.”

“I—I don’t know. We’ll never know.”

“Worked out pretty good for you that Big Jim died then, didn’t it?”

“Fuck you.”

“I’m not accusing here, I’m just telling you how this story makes you sound. Before you go any further, before you admit to anything else. You got all this ridiculous shit swirling around in your story but then you got the parts that are real, the parts that can be verified. A dead kid. A missing kid. A missing cop. Do you understand? So why don’t I do both of us a favor and pretend we never talked? Because I’m not sure I wanna hear the rest of it.”

I didn’t reply. He unlocked the door to a white Cavalier and ducked inside.

“Wait!”

I jogged up to the car and circled around to the passenger side. I gently smacked the window with my palm. Arnie hesitated, then reached over and unlocked it. I opened the door and leaned in.

“Can I sit down?”

He paused once more, not wanting to prolong this but not quite sure how to get rid of me. Maybe he was afraid I was dangerous, liable to fly into crazy-man violence if turned away. He used both hands to scoop up a bundle of notebooks and folders from the passenger seat. I ducked in and arranged my feet around a pile of recording equipment and cassettes on the floorboard. I took a breath, held my hands in front of me in a “I’m about to say something hugely important” motion and then said nothing for a very long time. Finally:

“Okay. I have the scars. You see the one on my cheek, I can show you, on my chest, the-“

“-No, no. That won’t be necessary. Look, I don’t wanna insult you or get into a thing where you chase me around like an evangelist tryin’ to convince me. It don’t matter if I believe you. Really. You believe it and that’s your own deal. I’m just a-“

“-My truck, let’s go back to my truck and I can show you the thing again. The thing in the cage.”

A long sigh from Arnie. “What else am I supposed to say, Wong? I don’t want you to live like this, kid, but I don’t know what you want from me. You’re telling me a story I can’t write. Can you imagine me writing up this shit? Who would read it? So what do you want?”

“I want somebody to know about this. Somebody from the outside, somebody normal and sane who people will believe. I want somebody to see and acknowledge it and understand what’s happening and what’s about to happen and then maybe they’ll know, they’ll still know after I’m gone and somehow the truth will get out. I get people calling me all the time about interviews, websites and late night talk radio and fringe magazines. I always say no. You know that’s true, you’ve read up on us. But why do you think I let you in? And why now? It’s because I think it’s my last chance to get my story out, that’s why.”

“What, you think you’re in some kind of danger? Somethin’s gonna jump out of an alley and eat you some night, right?”

I sat in silence for a moment, then said, “No. It’s nothing like that. Well, I mean, that’s a possibility, but it’s bigger than that.” Tell him about Amy.

Arnie let out a sigh.

“Just listen,” I said, begging a little. “Just listen a little bit longer and then everything will be clear. You’ll understand how much is at stake here. Seriously.”

Arnie sighed and looked off across the parking lot. “I ain’t got much time, Wong. It's getting late.”

“I know. Just... look, I need you go drive somewhere. We go there and everything will be clear, you’ll know what’s true and what isn’t.”

“Where?”

“The mall. The mall.”

He gave me a long, hard look. He was probably sizing up his ability to take me down if I went nuts on him and tried to bite through his neck. He apparently judged his physical prowess to be superior because he told me to close my door and twisted the key to rev the engine to life.

“Thanks, Arnie. I mean that. Just turn right out of the parking lot here.”

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Copyright © 2008 David Wong and Jason Pargin - All rights reserved. No part of this book or website may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the express written consent of the author and publisher. This online book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidence.